Where Forever Dies
by DarkAngelElektra
Summary: SEQUEL TO HOW THE WORLD ENDS. The war between vampires and Hunters rages on. Still grieving from the loss of Mickie, Dave has joined up with John Cena and his team of Hunters to protect his half-vampire daughter. But when a new threat looms on the horizon, the group finds their limits tested by powerful foes, unexpected allies...and dangerous long-buried secrets.
1. Chapter 1: Prologue

**A/N: I'm BACK! As promised, the sequel to How The World Ends. I actually wasn't going to start this story until I finished another one, but it kept bugging me so bad that I finally decided "What the hell?". I have the next three chapters roughly outlined in my head - but I've found I do well running by the seat of my pants, lol. Now that my script is (finally) done, I hope to update on a more regular basis.**

**I'll be writing this under the assumption that you've read HTWE - if you haven't, shame on you; it's a fun read. There is a time difference between the prologue and the following chapter - hopefully, if you're familiar with the previous story, you'll understand what I'm doing. I don't want to give too much away yet.**

**Anyway, as always, read, review, enjoy! PEACE!**

* * *

**Where Forever Dies**

Prologue: Amid The Ashes

"_Now, this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning..." - Winston Churchill_

"_So you think you know how this story goes/Are you ready for this?..." - Three Days Grace, "Are You Ready"_

* * *

From the moment he'd stepped into Apartment 1417, Josh Mathews had known that something was off.

The homicide detective flipped his memo book closed, twirling his pencil absently between index and middle finger. He had still been asleep when the first reports of a 10-80 - an explosion - had come in just after dawn, and hadn't gotten the official summons until a few hours later, when the bomb squad's sweep of the apartment had turned up the body of an unidentified young woman in the bathroom.

After eight years on the force - two of those with Homicide - Mathews was used to getting called out to scenes at all hours of the night, so he hadn't experienced much more than a passing irritation at having his Sunday morning slumber cut short. But as soon as he'd crossed over 1417's threshold, that typical annoyance had evaporated, replaced by a unfamiliar sensation of disquiet - a feeling that had only deepened as he tried to make sense of the various..._unusual_...aspects of this particular crime scene.

The door to the apartment, blown almost completely off its hinges - it looked ordinary enough, but it had taken three patrolmen to shift it out of the way, and when Mathews had rapped his knuckles against it out of curiosity, it had produced the unmistakable _CLANG _of metal...

The collection of knives scattered on the floor, most of them looking like they belonged either on a movie set or behind glass in a museum...

The large pile of greasy-looking grayish ash near the uncovered floor-to-ceiling window...and the wicked-looking Bowie knife right beside it, its angled blade and hilt coated with the same sooty substance...

Mathews sighed, massaging his temples between thumb and forefinger. He hadn't even had time to grab a cup of coffee before driving over here; he'd only been at the scene for an hour, but already it felt like five. One of the things he loved most about his job was figuring out the jigsaw puzzle that each individual crime scene presented; spreading all the various reports and photos and notes across his desk or his living room floor and figuring out how they all fit together, but _this..._

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make all of _these_ pieces fit together...and in the far reaches of his subconscious, he couldn't quite dispel the notion that maybe he _shouldn't_; that the final image these seemingly random details comprised would be one he was never meant to see-

The homicide detective rapidly shook his head, giving both of his cheeks a light slap. That insane idea was just the fatigue and lack of caffeine talking - maybe he could ask one of the rookies to run down to the nearest Starbucks and get him a large black coffee.

Besides, _all _crime scenes were overwhelming at the start - all that noise and activity and confusion. The trick was to take a mental step back from it all; to detach yourself from the stark obscenity of a human life being extinguished and force yourself to remain objective.

Mathews took a deep breath, running one hand through his hair and looking around. There was a handful of crime scene technicians and uniformed officers sprinkled throughout the large main area of the apartment. Through the front entryway, he could see more uniforms out in the hallway, though their presence was largely unnecessary - the fire department still hadn't given the all-clear for the building's residents to return to their homes.

The detective flipped open his memo book, jotting down a reminder to question the rent-a-cop at the front desk - though he doubted it would amount to much; the guy looked like he phoned it in on a regular basis - before tucking it into his jacket pocket and heading off to find his partner.

* * *

With his pleasant open features, graying hair and goatee, and faint Southern accent, most people assumed that Det. Brian G. James was nothing more than an unremarkable "good ol' boy" cop, counting down the days until he could collect on his pension.

What they didn't know - and often found out the hard way - was that lurking beneath that laid-back exterior was a sharp mind and even sharper wit, as well as a rebellious streak a mile wide - hence the reason why he was known around the precinct as "the Road Dogg".

At the moment, however, James' expression was solemn and inscrutable, and he didn't even look up as his partner entered the apartment's master bathroom, squatting down on his haunches next to him. Together, the two men silently regarded the body slumped inside the walk-in shower stall.

James was the first one to speak. "Any word on when the coroner's getting here, kid?"

Mathews only rolled his eyes at the childish moniker. Even though he had just turned thirty-two a few weeks ago, his youthful features often caused people to mistake him for a rookie - something his partner never failed to rag him over. "He's on his way; there's a lot of gridlock on the east side of town, and with all those one-way streets..." He added nothing further; merely raised one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug.

James grunted by way of response. "Figured." He fell silent for a moment, his gaze still fixed on the lifeless young woman in the shower stall. "You find anything out there?"

"Yeah, I did - and none of it makes any fucking sense." Mathews rested his elbows on his knees, his focus also captivated by the body before them. The young woman's hands were folded over her chest, her head lolling forward slightly against her collarbone. If not for all the blood - on her clothes, her face, the tile floor beneath her - it would have been easy to mistake her for sleeping.

The younger detective glanced at his partner. "I don't get it - she struggles with the killer out there, she runs in here, he kills her...but then what about the explosion? Hell, what about that fucking vault door we had to shove aside just to get in here?"

James said nothing. Mathews went on. "That shit out there - the knives and the ashes - do you think we're dealing with some kind of psycho here? Or a satanic cult thing? I mean-" The detective pressed his fingers against his forehead. "-call me crazy, but when I first saw the body, I could have _sworn_ that the marks on her neck were _bite marks_-"

At this, the veteran detective finally looked over, a strange, secretive look flitting across his face; in the depths of his eyes, he seemed almost..._fearful_. He opened his mouth to speak - but then abruptly snapped it closed as a new one floated out from the direction of the living room, indistinct but filled with a stridency and pomposity that instantly set Mathews' nerves on edge.

"Ah, hell," James muttered sourly, just as the owner of the voice strolled into the bathroom.

"Gentlemen! May I have your attention please!" Captain Michael Cole clasped both hands behind his back, the faint smile on his face a few degrees removed from a smirk.

Mathews gritted his teeth, struggling to keep his countenance neutral. He hated Cole; to him, the captain was nothing more than an incompetent ass-kisser who had managed to fail upward; a moron who cared more about politics than actual police work. He never came to a crime scene if he didn't have to, so the fact that he was _here_, at this hour and in full uniform...meant that Mathews' day was about to get even worse.

The captain cleared his throat, most likely for dramatic effect. "Effective _immediately_, the two of you are off this case."

"_What_?" both detectives exclaimed in unison. Mathews jumped to his feet, his mouth dropping open in shock. "The call came to _us - _you can't _do _that-"

"It's already done," Cole interrupted. "The case has been reassigned. The CSIs have been instructed to forward all findings directly to me from now on, and I want any notes you've taken on my desk by the end of the day." By now, the smirk was in plain sight, and a note of unctuous superiority had crept into his tone. "You two are out of the loop on this thing, and I _suggest_ you try and forget what you've seen."

"You _little_-" Before Mathews knew what he was doing, he was already storming toward his superior, the fingers of one hand clenched into a fist.

"Watch it, Mathews!" Cole held up his hand warningly. His voice had skittered up an octave, full of the sort of quavery courage that only an unshakable position of power can evoke. "Don't do something you might regret! You've got a promising career ahead of you on the force - I'd _hate_ to see you spend the rest of it back in Patrol." His tone was light, but there was no mistaking the threat it contained.

Mathews stopped, his features tightening in a glower. He had no doubt that Cole would make good on the threat; the hatred he had for the captain was mutual, and this wasn't the first time that they had butted heads. Besides, the last thing he wanted was to give Cole the satisfaction of knocking him down even further.

In the back of his mind, however, the younger detective wondered why his partner wasn't backing him up on this. Unlike Mathews, James didn't fear the consequences; he had been written up for insubordination more times than anyone could remember, and he often challenged Cole's decisions on issues far more inconsequential than this one.

But instead of adding his voice to the chorus of protests, the veteran detective remained strangely silent - and there was something about his total lack of _any_ opinion that sent a prickle of unease flitting through Mathews' insides.

_What was so bad about this case that it had even muzzled the Road Dogg?_

Cole's smarmy tone cut across the younger detective's thoughts like the abrupt screech of a needle against a record. "-now, I want you _and_ your partner off this scene _immediately_ - otherwise, I'll have you escorted out of the building."

Mathews swung his gaze back toward the captain, mentally weighing whether the primal satisfaction of plowing his fist into the middle of Cole's weaselly face would be worth the inevitable suspension. Instead, though, the homicide detective merely deepened his glare, brushing past his superior with a muttered: "This is _bullshit_..."

As he emerged back into the living room area, Mathews' furious pace slowed, then stopped. The CSIs and uniforms that had previously occupied the space were gone now, replaced by two unfamiliar figures.

Mathews' first thought was that they were part of the SWAT unit, since they were dressed in full head-to-toe black gear - gloves, helmets, the works. But that assumption didn't quite ring true, and a second later, he realized why - _neither of the pair had any weapons on them._

As he watched, still trying to determine their purpose, one of the figures strode over to the window, fidgeting with a control panel on the far end. There was a faint rumble of hydraulics, and the heavy black drapes on either side of the massive pane of glass began to inch closed.

The homicide detective felt an involuntary rush of panicked annoyance surge through him, and despite the directive Captain Cole had given, despite the consequences that any further disobedience would bring, he found himself rushing forward, the words tearing out of his throat: "Hey, don't _touch_ that! This is a _crime scene _- what are you _doing_-"

The figure barely moved; only turned its head in his direction. A beam of morning sunlight hit the helmet's visor, reflecting off the polished surface and dazzling Mathews' vision. At the same time, a cold numbing fog swarmed over his brain, infusing his limbs with lead and stopping him in his tracks.

The younger detective's mouth moved, but no sound emerged. He couldn't move, couldn't _speak_, and all around him, the world seemed to be distilling down into shades of gray. The figure by the window continued to gaze at him, and through the deadening blanket tamped down over his thoughts, Mathews heard a woman's voice, faint and sweetly enticing:

_Josh_...

Fingers sank into the meat of his bicep, digging in hard. A bright hot bubble of pain burst through the haze engulfing Mathews, clearing his head a little, and looking over, he saw the grim, determined face of his partner staring back at him.

James' voice sounded as though it was coming from the end of a hallway: "-get ahold of yourself!" Mathews could only blink; his thoughts felt heavy and scattered.

The veteran detective sank his fingers in harder, actually shaking his partner a little. "Come on!" the Road Dogg growled. Without adding anything further, he made a beeline for the front doorway, practically dragging his barely cognizant partner behind him. "Whatever you do, don't fucking look back-"

As soon as they made it out to the hallway, Mathews' head began to clear, and by the time the two detectives stepped into the elevator, he had all but forgotten that overwhelming mental haze and the powerlessness that had accompanied it.

He couldn't, however, shake the memory of that _voice_, and in the days, months, _years_ that followed, he would find himself remembering it; recalling the mellifluous way she had uttered the single syllable of his first name...

_Josh_...

* * *

The curtains met with a dull _WHUMP_, shutting out the rays of the sun. Cole cleared his throat, tugging nervously at the collar of his uniform. He and the two black-clad figures were the only ones remaining in the apartment.

The figure nearest to him removed his helmet, revealing a young man with slicked -back bleached blonde hair and handsome features that exuded an air of cockiness and arrogance. He flicked his gaze coolly toward the police captain. "You know, we _pay_ you to keep your lackeys in order - what was up with that detective of yours?"

"Don't worry about Mathews," Cole hastily replied, his blustering tone unable to mask the apprehension lurking just beneath it. "He may be a hothead, but he knows when to follow orders. I _guarantee_ he won't be a problem."

The blond man grinned, revealing a set of whitened fangs, and the police captain involuntarily gulped. "_He better not be_," the vampire whispered ominously.

A moment of uncomfortable silence crawled by. Cole shifted back and forth on the balls of his feet. "So...anything else you need done?"

Instead of answering, the blond man glanced over his shoulder at the other black-clad figure, who had yet to remove their helmet. Neither of them said a word, but Cole still got the sense that a conversation was taking place - and that for all his bravado, the vampire in front of him was not the one calling the shots.

Finally, the blond man looked back in his direction, as though he'd all but forgotten the police captain's presence. "Yeah - go out into the hall, make sure no one else comes in, and don't _move_ until we tell you otherwise." His grin widened a touch, making him look almost wolfish. "_Got it_?" Cole nodded, swallowing hard, and backed up, practically tripping over his polished shoes in his haste to follow orders.

As soon as he was gone, the figure near the window carefully removed their helmet. Long pale blonde hair tumbled free, falling around an extraordinary beautiful face - delicate features, full lips, dark brown eyes framed with long thick lashes - that was so devoid of emotion or concern, it could have almost been a mask.

With a dainty practiced motion, the young woman flicked her hair back from her face, looking around the large living room with vague interest. Her upper lip curled ever-so-slightly in disgust as she uttered her first words:

"What a mess."

Her diction was perfect, despite the thick French accent coating each syllable. The blond man turned around, shrugging nonchalantly. "What do you expect, Maryse? Hunters aren't exactly known for picking up after themselves - and all those cops tramping around-"

His voice trailed off as the woman shot him a withering look. "_Thank_ _you_, Dolph, for pointing out what I could not possibly have picked up on my own." she drawled sarcastically. The blond man's cocksure countenance flushed with embarrassment, and he ducked his head.

Maryse rolled her eyes, pulling off her thick workman's gloves to reveal long slender fingers with manicured nails. "I was speaking rhetorically," With smooth graceful movements, she strolled over to the large pool of ashes, kneeling down and running her fingers through the grayish grit like a prospector panning for gold.

She stopped suddenly, pulling out a twisted ring of metal. It was blackened from heat and partially melted, but the scales and head of the coiled snake were still identifiable.

Dolph eased closer, peering at the patch of ashes. "Is it her?"

Maryse nodded absently, her attention still fixed on the warped metal ornament. "Yes. This was a gift from her sire - she never took it off." She ran her thumb over the sooty surface, revealing a dull flash of gold. "Alberto will not be pleased when he learns of her death."

The blond man rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, Alberto's _never_ pleased." Maryse didn't respond to his attempt at humor, but instead set the melted bracelet back down onto the pile of ashes almost reverently. Dolph's handsome features twitched in amusement. "Don't tell me you're actually _sorry_ that Melina's gone - I thought the two of you _hated_ each other."

The female vampire lifted one shoulder noncommittally. "She resented me, true - for reaching my position within the Council despite being a fraction of her age - but I bore her no ill will." A sardonic smile touched the corners of her mouth. "Her death was inevitable, though; she was careless...careless and stupid. Careless for living as she did with no thought of the consequences - _stupid_ for believing that five centuries of immortality would be enough to protect her."

Maryse stood, dusting her hands off briskly. Her tone, when she spoke again, was detached, clinical. "I want to see the body now."

* * *

Dolph leaned against the wall, watching as Maryse examined the corpse in the shower stall. "So this is the supposed vampire baby-mama," he remarked dryly. "The infamous Mickie James."

The blond woman didn't answer; she was too busy prodding the dead young woman's abdomen, poking her fingers down between her legs. Finally, she leaned back on her haunches, letting out a frustrated sigh that bordered on a growl. "The child is gone."

Dolph straightened up, moving over toward the shower stall. "How do you know?" he asked slowly. "Maybe it's dead. Maybe she died before she could pop it out-"

Maryse shot him another contemptuous glare and the vampire instantly shut up. "She gave birth," the female vampire declared. "That's what killed her. But there's no sign of the baby. If it died, they would have left it behind."

The blond man frowned. "_They_?" he asked. "Who are '_they'_?"

Maryse's dark brown eyes narrowed slightly. "Whoever it was that blew in the door-" Before she could finish, the shrill electronic jangle of a cell phone ringer went off, echoing off the walls of the tiled space. Rolling her eyes, the female vampire dug in her pocket, pulling out a rhinestone-encrusted IPhone and holding it to her ear. "'_Allo_?"

"Get me the _fuck_ out of here!" Even coming through a tiny phone speaker, Randy Orton's deep voice was deafening. Maryse winced, pulling the device away from her face.

Dolph looked at her, his eyebrows raised questioningly. Maryse flipped one hand in an impatient shooing motion, indicating that he should leave the room. The blond vampire obeyed, shoving his hands in his pockets and ambling out into the dim master bedroom.

As soon as he was out, the female vampire raised the phone back up, taking care to keep the speaker well away from her ear. "Randy? This is most inconvenient-"

"Oh, I'm _sorry_," the Viper's Pit owner interrupted, his voice oozing snide sarcasm. "I'm _sorry_ to call in the middle of your facial - just get me the hell out of here!"

Maryse lifted her hand, examining her nails as she spoke. "Where are you?"

There was a long pause, then: "The emergency room."

The female vampire let out a soft snort of laughter. "Whatever are you doing _there_?"

"I have _no fucking idea_ - I just woke up and found myself here." Orton lowered his voice a touch. "Get me out of here, Mar - I'm going out of my mind. They won't give me painkillers, they won't stop with their stupid fucking questions-"

"Why should I?" Now the blond woman was the one to interject, her tone clipped and icy. "In case you haven't already realized it, you're in no position to demand _anything_." Her dark irises flicked toward the motionless body in the glassed-in shower stall. "That _merchandise _you promised...has been irretrievably lost."

There was another pause on Orton's end, even longer this time, before the Viper's Pit owner finally barked out a single word in a harsh growl. "_Cena_."

As soon as those two syllables floated through the tiny IPhone speaker, the female vampire went absolutely still. "_What_?"

"_John fucking Cena_!" Orton practically screamed - either he hadn't heard the sudden interest in the blond woman's tone, or he just didn't care. "It was all _his_ fault! Him and that whiny fanged bitch Dave! I had everything under control before they showed up-"

The Viper's Pit owner went on, but Maryse was no longer listening - her mind was already racing ahead, whirring with that clocklike precision that had served her just as well throughout the years as her pretty face and ample figure. Eventually, she grew bored with Orton's ranting, and cut him off in mid-sentence: "Sit tight, while I take care of things."

She hesitated for a moment, then added: "Just so you know...if this turns out to be some ploy you thought up to take the blame off your own incompetence...I'll come to that bar of yours and make your day _exceedingly _unpleasant-"

"I'm so fucking scared." Orton interrupted sarcastically, and there was a dull buzz as he hung up. Maryse returned the IPhone to her pocket, pursing her full lips as she considered her next course of action. After a minute or so, she cocked her head to the side. "_Dolph_!"

Instantly, the blond vampire was at the doorway. "Yes?"

Maryse stared at him, her expression faintly imperious. "Go fetch that police captain - whatever his name is - and bring him back here. There's an errand I need him to run."

Dolph nodded, but didn't move. The female vampire arched her eyebrows expectantly. "Well? What is it?"

The blond vampire turned his head to the side, peering at her out of the corner of his eye. "You've got that look on your face," he remarked after a while. "You find out something?"

A tiny smile touched the edges of Maryse's lips. "Let's just say...that things are becoming interesting again."

She said nothing further, and Dolph finally shrugged, ducking out of the bathroom and heading off to retrieve Cole. The female vampire looked back toward Mickie's body. "_Very _interesting," she added, to no one in particular.

Maryse steepled her slender fingers underneath her chin, her mouth widening in a smile both sweet and cruel. "Yes, it has been a very long time since we last saw one another..."

"..._Johnny." _


	2. Chapter 2: Days Go By

**A/N: Before I start, I need to clarify something. Reading through your reviews, it's evident there's been a lot of confusion about WHEN the prologue takes place, particularly because Randy makes an appearance, and he was a crispy critter at the end of HTWE. To explain, the prologue actually takes place, chronologically, between Chapter 39 and the epilogue of How The World Ends (remember, there's a two-year time difference), so Randy would still be alive. However, when the rest of this story takes place, he is quite crispy and will be making no further trouble for anyone. Sorry to confuse (and disappoint) you all.**

**Sorry for the long wait; I was finishing up another story, but I am beyond excited to work on this one. I can't wait to show you what's been cooking in my head.**

**Thank you to **Esha Napoleon, therealchamps, Shandy777, Girl on Fire, **and **BigRedMachineUK **for reviewing the first chapter! You all rock! Seriously! I love you all! Peace!**

* * *

Chapter 1: Days Go By

"_I try to breathe/Memories overtaking me/I try to face them, but the thought is too much to conceive..." - Staind, "Fade"_

* * *

_Three Years Later_

The vampire's name was Darren Young, and at the moment, he was running for his life.

The bloodsucker sprinted down the deserted street, little more than a flicker of movement in and out of the intermittent pools of light cast by the streetlamps. Despite his superhuman pace, however, his motions were far from graceful; more than once, the toes of his sneakers caught against cracks and the edges of curbs, sending him face-first onto the concrete and earning him a few more painful scrapes in the process. But no matter how many times he fell, Darren would only scramble frantically back to his feet and resuming running, entreaties tearing out of his throat in a single repetitious moan-

_Oh shit oh shit oh shit..._

-all the while shooting terrified glances back over his shoulder at the dimly illuminated road behind him, his dark irises searching for _it_; that massive shadow that seemed to cling to his every movement as closely as his own...

Before coming to this small rural Midwestern town, Darren and his best friend Titus O'Neill had been two-bit hustlers from New York; enterprising, but unable to break through that glass ceiling in the criminal tower of success. All that had changed one night when they picked up a hooker who turned them just for the hell of it, leaving the two of them with empty wallets and a newfound thirst for the red stuff.

After an awkward but mercifully brief adjustment period to their new circumstances, Darren and Titus had tried to pick up where they left off, conning bloodsucker and human alike - only to find that the vampire underworld was even tougher than the mortal one...and infinitely more vicious should you fail.

Eventually, the pair had succeeded in pissing off enough of the undead elite to make living in New York without getting decapitated difficult, if not impossible. It had been Titus who had first suggested California, and Darren - tired of East Coast winters and tempted by the thought of warm summer nights and girls in bikinis - had agreed.

With no money in their pockets, they had hitchhiked and smuggled themselves from town to town, eventually ending up here in one of those landlocked states in the middle of the country: Iowa or Nebraska or Kansas - Darren couldn't remember which. They had only intended to spent a few days in this town, but that span of time had quickly turned into a few weeks, then a few _months_, as the duo discovered - with some surprise - that they _liked _it here.

Sure, the only bar was three miles outside of town, and sometimes, the lack of noise at night drove you crazy - but there was plenty of open space, fresh air, and pretty farm girls with tasty corn-fed blood_._ Best of all, though, there was no other criminal _or_ vampire element to compete with; no rigid hierarchy to work their way up the ranks of. For the first time in their lives - mortal _and _immortal - Darren and Titus had the chance to go straight to the top; to be the guys in charge; the ultimate, _unquestioned_ authority, and before long, their conversation had shifted from California altogether.

Talk a good enough game, and eventually _someone_ will listen - and if there was one thing Darren and Titus both excelled at, it was talking a very, _very_ good game. Using a combination of their street smarts and supernatural persuasion, the pair of petty criminals were able to weed out a small crew - men who, with the right amount of cash waved in their faces, were willing to put aside their scruples and come over to the darkness. Before long, business was booming; before long, people were showing _them_ respect, and it seemed like the success that had been so cruelly denied them was finally within their grasp.

Looking back, that had probably been their first mistake - not realizing that the downside to being big fish in a small pond means that the ripples you create are that much more noticeable. So when the first reports had begun to trickle in through their expanding network that Hunters were headed their way, instead of taking them seriously, Darren had - stupidly - laughed them off.

He had always found the idea of professional vampire hunters ludicrous - in his mind, he pictured a group of nerds armed with crosses and wooden stakes who had watched one too many episodes of Buffy - and even if it _were_ true, if they _did_ exist, what reason would they have to come all the way out here?

Perhaps _that_ had been their second mistake - assuming their small pond was beneath notice. Either way, all of their success, their dreams, their delusions of grandeur - all of it had come to a screeching halt tonight when they had stumbled out of the local bar and _he _had appeared out of nowhere, shotgun in hand, materializing out of the shadows as though he was comprised of them-

Two shots - that was all it took. Two shots, leaving Titus dead - his half-formed cry of surprise still echoing through the air while his body crumbled to dust - and Darren running for his motherfucking life.

Through the haze of adrenaline and fear blurring his vision, the vampire saw a gap up ahead; a narrow alley that was little more than a pathway between adjacent buildings. Cutting sharply to the left, he practically dived into it, pressing his body against one side, his hands shooting out and his fingers digging into the angled gaps between bricks.

In his panic, he had forgotten that breathing was a vampire nonessential, and the breath was tearing in and out of his lungs in hoarse pants. Sweat dripped down his face in icy rivulets, and if he had still been biologically capable of pissing his pants, the crotch of his jeans would have been uncomfortably damp by now.

A second crawled by, then another, their sum total slowly aggregating into a minute. Darren pressed his lips together, trying to remind his brain that he didn't need to breathe, trying to push the smothering cloud of panic back far enough so he could hear any sounds of his pursuer's approach.

He had been light on his feet even before heading over to the dark side, and had always taken his supernatural quickness for granted, confident that he could outrun anyone chasing him, but _this_ guy...

This guy could fucking _move_ - almost like he _wasn't_ human; like he was a-

The remainder of the thought was cut off as the muzzle of the shotgun dug into Darren's chin, forcing his head up and actually lifting him off the ground an inch or two. The vampire gagged as the unyielding metal compressed his windpipe, his dangling feet kicking helplessly in midair. His eyes bulged, and through the bright blobs of color obscuring his vision, he was able to get his first good look at his pursuer.

The man on the other end of the shotgun was built like a tank - tall and muscular; his massive arms sleeved in tattoos, the lines between his black t-shirt hinting at an equally well-defined upper body. His features were sharp, handsome in a crudely primal sort of way, and his dark hair was shaved close to his skull. His dark eyes were like black holes in his face - but as they fastened on Darren, they suddenly glowed red in the gloom. His lips pulled back from his teeth, and there was a dim flash as light reflected off his set of metal fangs.

Darren felt his body go limp with shock - no way, _no fucking way_-

"Holy _shit_..." It took some effort to force the syllables out; the gun was pressing directly against his larynx. "You're-you're one of _us_-"

The roar of the shotgun drowned out his final words. Dave Batista stepped back, swinging the gun back up to rest against his shoulder, watching impassively as the remains of Darren Young disintegrated into ash, drifting down to the ground in silty motes. The red light slowly faded from his dark eyes, and his lips moved, spitting out only two words in a flat terse voice:

"_Not anymore_."

Somewhere up above him, he heard the murmur of a sleep-filled voice, followed by the _SCREECH _of a window sash being pushed up. Dave quickly returned the weapon to the holster strapped across his broad back, melting back into the shadows.

By the time the drowsy upstairs occupant stuck their head out to investigate the source of the gunshot, the vampire was already gone.

* * *

The large fenced-in piece of property surrounded by corn fields had once been a working dairy farm; now, however, the sprawling cluster of buildings stood empty, long since deserted by its owners and their livestock.

A chain-link gate stretched across the main entrance to the farm; it was here that Dave paused, flipping open the cover on a fairly new keypad and pressing a five-digit code. The gate rumbled softly, then slid open a foot or two, providing just enough space for him to squeeze his massive frame through, and slamming shut as soon as he was inside. In theory, he could have bypassed the code entirely and just scaled the fence, but Dave knew better - the chain-link barrier was electrified, and Maria wasn't shy about cranking up the juice while the others were out.

He made his way through the knot of abandoned buildings - the barn, the feed silo, the milking shed - toward the farmhouse at the rear corner of the property. The hot summer air was thick with corn dust and the lingering redolence of cow shit, and beyond the boundaries of the chain-link fence, the corn stalks rubbed against one another with an eerily ominous dry rustle of leaves.

The vampire shot a reflexive glance back over his shoulder, even though there was almost no chance he had been followed - he had taken the least conspicuous route out of town, and his keen senses would have alerted him long before now of a possible tail. No, it was this _place_, the land _itself_, that spooked him.

In the city, _any _city, there were buildings, alleys, basements - places to hide or crannies to duck into when the sun was in the sky. But _here_...there was nothing but empty open space; endless fields stretching on and on for _miles_. It was easy for a vampire to imagine getting caught out here, with nowhere to hide, like an egg in the middle of an enormous frying pan, while the sun beat down overhead, burning you into a crisp-

Dave shivered, forcing himself back to the present. The team's business in this middle-of-nowhere burg was almost complete; in a day or two, they would pack up the vans and head east, leaving this flat vacant _nothingness_ far behind them. In the meantime, he would go inside, check in with the rest of the group, look in on Hope, and then crawl into his cot and hopefully grab a few hours of sleep.

The farmhouse was two stories, and, despite its lack of occupancy, only slightly the worse for wear - peeling paint, loose siding, missing shingles. There were no lights visible anywhere - one of the first orders of business upon arriving had been to put blast shields over all of the windows - and the dark panes of glass stared outward like rows of blank unreadable eyes. Unless your ears were sharp enough to pick up the almost imperceptible hum of electrical current - as Dave's were - it was easy to believe that the residence was well and truly abandoned.

The front door was directly ahead of him, but the vampire veered to the left instead, moving along the outer perimeter of the house. The porch was booby-trapped; any unsuspecting individual who trod on it would receive a nasty surprise in the form of several pounds of rigged plastic explosives. Hope was forbidden to go anywhere near it, and all of the other Hunters knew to restrict her outdoor play to the rear of the house.

Halfway along the left side of the house was a set of wooden cellar doors that led down to the basement area. There was no lock, and Dave lifted one open, holding it aloft and using it for balance as he carefully made his way down the stone steps into the cool dank interior of the cellar.

There were no lights down here - pitch darkness wasn't a problem for him, and the rest of the team had flashlights. The small space was filled with shelves heaped with rusted farm equipment and tools, turning the room into a labyrinth of pathways. This was another safety precaution; there was only one safe route through the maze - the rest had been outfitted with traps and alarms.

His meandering through the warren of aisles eventually brought him to another set of stone steps, these ones leading up to the first floor of the house. The door at the top was closed; a keypad was set into this one, and on the wall above the light switch, there was an intercom.

Climbing the stairs one by one, Dave entered the same five-digit code, hearing the soft oiled _click _of a bolt sliding back. Instead of grasping the knob, though, he reached up and pressed the "CALL" button on the intercom instead. "Dave." There was another _click_ as a second bolt disengaged, and the door slowly swung open, allowing the big man to step out onto the first floor of the farmhouse.

Even though the lights still worked, the large living room area was dark, its only illumination coming from the greenish glow of Maria's computers screens. The red-haired Hunter was staring intently at one of her monitors, chewing absently on her thumbnail, light reflecting off the lens of her wire-framed glasses.

Dave quietly pushed the door shut behind him, the bolts automatically sliding back into place; at the sound, the computer whiz looked up, flashing a welcoming smile and a wave in the vampire's direction. "Hey you! Want some tea - I _just_ made a fresh pot."

The big man shook his head. "Not...really." he answered slowly. Maria's ever-present ebullience always made him feel a little tongue-tied.

The redhead flipped her palm in a dismissive gesture. "Eh, I'll pour you a cup anyway - give you something to hold while I sit and drink mine." She pushed her rolling chair back, the wheels clattering against the warped floor boards. "Have a seat - I'll be right back." She disappeared into the kitchen area, and Dave heard the sounds of cabinet doors and clinking pottery.

The vampire grabbed a nearby plastic chair, dragging it over to the computer bank and sinking down onto it. He didn't much feel like socializing, but he didn't want to disappoint Maria - he genuinely liked her, and out of the entire team, she was the one who had put forth the most effort in terms of making him feel like a member of the group.

Even after three years, the reality of his situation had never lost its acutely uncomfortable edge. He was a vampire in a group of vampire killers. Sure, Cena and his team had saved his life, and sure, he had repaid the favor more than a few times in the years that followed - but that would never change the fact that their alliance was based on necessity, not trust.

His teammates had been shaped by tragedy, their lives irrevocably destroyed by bloodsuckers. Even though Dave had suffered, too, the very fact of _what_ _he was_ would always mark him as an outsider. He could never be one of them, not really - at best, he was merely a painful reminder of what had befallen them - and most days, he felt less like a part of the team, and more like a prisoner who's been granted a temporary stay of execution.

The vampire's bitter musings were cut off as Maria returned, two tall porcelain mugs in hands. She set one down near Dave, pushing it toward him. "Here ya go - fresh out of the pot." However, Dave's nostrils quickly detected the unmistakable coppery aroma, and picking the mug up, a cautious swig confirmed his suspicions - it was full of blood.

The big man shot a look at Maria, raising both eyebrows questioningly. The computer whiz shrugged, wrapping her slender fingers around her own mug as she raised it to her lips. "What? I thought you'd be hungry, and I know you don't like to drink in front of Hope-"

She had a point - if there was one thing Dave absolutely made all efforts to avoid, it was consuming blood in front of his daughter. It was one thing to say that Daddy slept all day because he worked at night, or that he could lift up the back of the van because he was just really strong - it was quite another to explain why Daddy drank the same gross red stuff that came out of your knees when you fell down and cut yourself.

And in the back of his mind, the vampire was painfully aware that he _would_ have to explain it; that one day, he would have to sit his daughter down and spell out very carefully just why her daddy was different from her "aunties" and "unkas".

Why he was different...and why, ergo, she was special...

Dave realized that Maria was staring at him expectantly, lips poised at the rim of her mug. "Well?" the redhead asked.

The big man leaned back, taking a longer sip from his own cup before replying. "It's done," he remarked shortly. "Both of them - though that Darren ran like a motherfucker." He glanced at the computer whiz. "The others back yet?"

Maria shook her head. "Nope - they're still staking out the site. Of course, you would have _known_ that _already_ if you'd bothered to wear your earpiece." The last sentence was delivered in a tone of teasing reproach.

Dave let out a low chuckle. "Yeah right; I fucking hate that thing. I hear enough voices in my head, _thank you very much_." The redhead giggled at this. The vampire took another swig. "So what's the plan? We hitting them tomorrow night?"

At this, the computer tech bit her lip, hesitating just a moment too long before answering. "Actually...they decided to just wait until dawn - daybreak those guys while they're still sleeping and take them by surprise."

At this, the big man rolled his eyes, blowing air out between his lips with obvious irritation. Maria threw him a pointed glance. "Don't look at me like that - it was Boss Man's call-"

"Of course it was," the vampire interjected, his tone a mixture of sarcasm and annoyance. "It always _is_ - and heaven forbid we question the _decisions _of our _fearless leader_. I mean, _I'm _only the one who _found_ those guys, sitting night after night in that damn honky tonk-"

The redhead sighed, averting her gaze and setting her mug on the edge of her desk. tucking both of her hands under her thighs. "Cena's just trying to give us a tactical advantage-"

"Is he?" the big man shot back hotly. "Is he _really_? I mean, why don't we just call it what it _really_ is - that even after _three goddamn years_, he still doesn't trust a _bloodsucker _to watch his back."

Maria pressed her full lips together pensively, her emerald irises still fastened on the floor. "He's _trying_, Dave-"

"No, _you're_ trying," Dave interrupted. "Beth's trying - hell, even _Jeff's trying_. Cena...he just _tolerates _me."

The computer whiz's eyes flicked up, meeting his, sparkling with just a touch of anger. "You know," Maria remarked, her voice just as controlled as her gaze. "You're not the _only_ one who lost Mickie."

It was the entirely wrong thing to say, and both of them knew it. Dave's dark irises narrowed, and he chugged the remainder of his blood, slamming the empty mug back down onto the desk hard enough to rattle the multiple keyboards. "I'm going upstairs to check on my daughter," he spat shortly. "After _that,_ I'm going to _bed_ - wake me up if Boss Man _decides_ that he _wants_ my help."

"Dave..." Maria tried to say, but the vampire swept past her, moving to the doorway separating the living room from the foyer. The redhead swung her chair around, rising to her feet as she called after him. "I'm _sorry_ - you know that I didn't mean it-"

At this, the big man paused, and after a second or two of tense silence, turned back toward his teammate. He ran his tongue thoughtfully along one of his steel fangs, choosing his words carefully. "Tell me, Maria - what we do..."

His dark irises bore into hers. "...does it ever get...any easier?'

Maria's delicately featured face didn't even flinch. "Do you want the truth...or the lie this time?"

A humorless smile touched the corners of Dave's mouth. "Lie to me."

The redhead let out a soft huffing sound that was almost a laugh, a similar grin twitching at the edges of her lips. "Of _course_ it gets easier," she finally replied. Her high-pitched voice was thick with the beginnings of tears. "It _always_ gets easier."

The vampire stared at her for a long moment. "Hmmm...you're a terrible liar." With that, he turned around, moving out into the foyer, and making his way up the steps.

* * *

"No...Mickie...no..."

Dave tossed and turned restlessly on his sleeping cot, his violent movements threatening to overturn the narrow apparatus. His eyes were closed, but his sharp features were twisted in a grimace of intense pain, his cheeks damp with sweat and tears. His mouth moved as he slept, exhaling the words in a breathless, tortured murmur:

"Don't go...please...don't..."

His powerful hands clenched into fists, the knuckles flushing white with the pressure. The sharpened tip of one of his metal fangs sank into his lower lip, hard enough to draw blood.

"Mickie...don't..._Mickie_-"

With a hoarse cry, the vampire sat up, all the air exploding from his lungs in a single anguished gasp. His eyes flew open, the look in them crazed and distrustful as they darted over the contours of the room, as though he doubted the veracity of his surroundings.

Gradually, as the seconds ticked by, reality reasserted itself and the nightmarish world of the dream melted away into the ether. Dave remained where he was for another moment or two before swinging his legs over the side of the cot, hunching over and resting his elbows on his knees. His head was pounding, and he felt like he had just stepped off a rapidly spinning carousel; everything around him seemed to be sliding out of place.

The nightmare was nothing new; he'd been having it almost every night for the last few years, the only exception being when he was too exhausted to dream. There were several variations of it, but the particulars were always the same.

Mickie, alive and unscarred, safe in his arms, lying beneath him as he made love to her...

_I want you to hold me...hold me, please..._

...abruptly fading into Mickie lying on the floor of that shower stall, the life bleeding out of her-

_You gave me a reason...to live..._

_ I love you..._

Dave's stomach abruptly inverted, a sudden burst of nausea climbing up his throat. Clamping his lips together, the big man stumbled to his feet, staggering toward the door and across the hall to the bathroom. Grabbing onto the sink with both hands, he spat a foul-tasting dark red glob of bile into the basin.

The vampire stared at it for an instant, then turned on the faucet, washing it down the drain and out of sight. He cupped his hands under the flow of cool water, catching it in his palms and splashing it against his face. He did this a second time, then a third, and then eventually turned the water off, lifting his head up to stare dully at his reflection in the spotted bathroom mirror.

When you were a vampire, forgetting was easy - when your face never changed, it wasn't hard to pretend that nothing else did, either. Looking into the mirror, it was easy to forget that three years had gone by...and that Mickie, the mother of his child, the love of his life, was still dead.

Except for his fangs, which had never grown back, his injuries from that night had healed completely - even the worst of his burns from his sprint through the sunlight had faded away eventually. But not even the passage of time had managed to seal up the hole where his heart used to be; a void inside his chest both numb and aching.

Perhaps he didn't understand the hatred that drove his fellow Hunters...but he understood their grief - that it was a wounded animal, snarling and in pain; that it never stopped hurting and never stopped digging its claws into the most tender spots of your soul...and that just picturing Mickie's face or remembering her voice was like poking that animal with a stick.

He had been asked once or twice over the years, by other Hunters whose paths they'd crossed, if it was hard for him; killing his own kind without mercy or constraint. And every time he heard it, Dave almost wanted to laugh because it _wasn't_ hard - whatever loyalty he'd possessed toward his vampire brethren had died the night Mickie had. Hunting...that was easy; when you hunted, your only focus was eliminating your target while making it out alive - there was no room for unnecessary emotion or pangs of conscience.

It was when he _wasn't_ hunting, when he no longer had the luxury or excuse of shutting himself off from the world, that living in it became almost unbearable-

"Daddy?"

The tentative high-pitched child's voice immediately cut through the self-pitying haze surrounding the vampire, and he froze. Slowly, trying to wrest his features back into some semblance of affability, he turned around, his gaze instantly falling to the tiny figure standing in the doorway. "Hey, baby," he whispered, forcing a smile onto his face. "What're you doing up?"

Hope wore an oversized My Little Pony t-shirt for a nightgown. In one hand, she clutched Mr. Lop, the stuffed rabbit that Jeff had made for her out of old socks; with the other, she sleepily rubbed her eyes. "The crying - it woke me up." Having spent the entirety of her small life around adults, Hope was surprisingly articulate for her age.

Dave felt his stomach clench painfully, and it took everything he had not to squinch his features in consternation. He sighed heavily, running one large hand over his shaven skull. "I'm sorry, baby - I guess I was having a bad dream."

Instead of answering, Hope popped her thumb into her mouth, sucking on it thoughtfully as she stared up at her father. Dave felt his breath catch in his throat, as it did every time. Hope had inherited his coloring and his dark hair, which flowed down her back in raven-hued waves - but her face, and especially her _eyes_, were a mirror image of Mickie's.

The vampire loved his daughter more than anything in the world, but sometimes just looking at her was almost too hard to bear - she looked _so much_ like her mother.

Hope removed her thumb from her mouth, hugging Mr. Lop to her chest and blinking her brown eyes solemnly. "About Mommy?"

The big man felt his stomach wrench with another agonizing twist - he'd been fully prepared to deliver a phony story, but sometimes, there was just no point in hiding the truth from Hope; as young as she was, she had an uncanny knack for seeing through to the heart of things. So instead, Dave just nodded his head slowly. "Yeah...about Mommy."

"Hmm." Hope hugged her stuffed animal even tighter, pressing her small face against the space between Mr. Lop's ears. Her eyes never wavered from the imposing figure of her father. "You miss her?"

This time, Dave had to look away for a second or two, blinking back the tears that stung his eyes. "Yeah, baby..." he managed to answer, his voice hoarse with barely controlled emotion. "I do."

At this, Hope lifted her face up, her delicate jaw quivering slightly. "_Me too_."

Dave looked up, gazing at his daughter for a moment before kneeling down, opening his arms. Hope didn't hesitate, but ran to him, entwining her small arms fiercely around his neck. Wrapping his own arms around the child, the vampire carried her out of the bathroom, crossing the corridor to the room adjacent to his.

Until the other spaces in the house, which were stark and functional, Hope's room was plastered with posters of flowers, puppies and kittens, cartoon characters. Handmade mobiles dangled from the ceiling, and the small nightlight in the corner was covered with a screen that projected images of hearts up onto the walls.

The posters had originally been Maria's idea, though the rest of the team had added to the decor over the years. They all doted on Hope, and it wasn't unusual for one of the Hunters to return from a long night of tracking with a small toy or a packet of crayons in their pocket for her.

It wasn't just because she was a child, however, that they were so devoted to her. To them, even to Dave, Hope represented innocence - not only the innocence of childhood, but the innocence they all had lost the day they discovered that vampires exist. More than that, she represented her namesake - the hope that redemption was possible; that a new life _could_ transpire after this one.

That was why they disarmed before coming to her room, why they never talked business when she was within earshot, why they hung up her pictures on their walls as though they were priceless works of art - because childhood never lasts, and when you grow in the midst of a bunch of vampire hunters, that childhood is destined to come to an end abruptly and far too soon.

And the last thing any of them wanted to see was that bright youthful curiosity in Hope's brown eyes fade away into the same flat dull awareness they all saw in their own.

Dave carried his daughter over to her bed - instead of a cot, she slept on two mattresses stacked on top of one another - and tucked her in, pulling a thin blanket carefully up over her and Mr. Lop. "Now, if I tell you a story, do you _promise_ to go back to sleep?" Hope bobbed her head up and down in an emphatic nod. The big man glanced over at the small makeshift bookshelf, where his daughter's picture books were kept. "Which one? Cat in the Hat?"

Hope shook her head. "No, tell the one 'bout the _princess_!"

The vampire chuckled affectionately. "_Again_?" Another vehement nod. Dave shrugged. "Okay, here goes..." He settled his massive frame down on his haunches, folding his hands together as he spoke. "Once upon a time...there was a beautiful princess...the most beautiful princess in the _world_...and her name was-"

Hope giggled, clapping her hands together enthusiastically. "_Mickie_!" she crowed.

The big man laughed, reaching over to ruffle her hair. "That's right - her name was Mickie." He went on, his deep voice rising and falling as he talked about Princess Mickie, and her handsome prince Dave, and the evil witch Melina holding her hostage.

He had told the story so many times that he barely paid attention to it anymore, so he was genuinely startled when Hope suddenly asked: "Daddy...why are you sad?"

The vampire faltered, all the air leaving his body as though he'd been punched in the gut. With effort, he lifted his gaze, staring at his daughter. "I-I don't know, baby," He reached over, gently stroking her cheek. "Sometimes...people are just sad."

Hope bit her lip, her expression pensive, and then sat up, crawling over to him and wrapping both arms around his neck. "Here's a hug, Daddy," she whispered. "I don't want you to be sad."

Dave embraced his daughter, placing a kiss on her cheek. "Thank you, baby," he murmured, hoping that she wouldn't hear the tears hovering at the edges of his voice.

Hope pulled back, and climbed back under the covers, clutching Mr. Lop to her as she waited to hear the rest of the story. By the time the vampire reached the end, where the brave Prince Dave vanquished the evil witch Melina and tossed her into a bottomless pit never to be seen again, the little girl was fast asleep.

* * *

Dave softly pulled Hope's door closed, leaving it open just a crack, before trudging over to his own. He traversed the distance to his cot, sinking down onto it and stretching his tall frame out full-length. The vampire sighed, reaching up with both hands to cover his face, his daughter's question still reverberating in his head:

_Daddy...why are you sad?..._

The big man let out a harsh laugh that was filled with more desperation than humor. Hope would have been better off asking why the sky was blue or why birds fly - at least _those_ were questions that had answers. _This one_ - he didn't know if he could adequately explain it to _himself..._let alone to a three-year-old.

_Because all I want is for you to have a normal life - but you can never have a normal life...because your mommy's dead, and your daddy's a vampire, and the fact that you even exist is an impossibility..._

_Because the day you were born was the day I lost HER, and the moment before I held you for the first time was the moment I felt her slip away. Because living is hard, EXISTING is hard, and you are the only thing in this world stopping me from eating my gun and ending it all-_

Dave drew in a labored shaky breath. He couldn't keep doing this forever - and the profound irony of _that_ assertion was that he _could_. His body might be indestructible, but his sanity was made of much more fragile matter - it wasn't much of a contest which one would break first.

The vampire dropped his hands back down to his sides, staring vacantly up at the water-marked ceiling. "It gets easier," he remarked to no one, echoing Maria's words.

His lip curled with faint scorn. "Yeah, right." Without uttering anything further, he rolled over onto his side, waiting for the dull gray fog of nightmares to swarm over him once more.


	3. Chapter 3: Daybreak

**A/N: NEW CHAPTER! Sorry for the delay, I've been busy with a bunch of things - work, a podcast, a new script - and this script was DRAINING and MASSIVE; I actually took out a section and added it to the next chapter. I'm not sure if it's not just screaming insanity, but I did the best that I could, and I really hope you all enjoy it. PEACE!**

**Thank you to **Esha Napoleon, therealchamps, BigRedMachineUK, Shandy777, **and **Girl on Fire **for reviewing the last chapter! You know that I love you! HUGS AND PUPPIES!**

* * *

Chapter 2: Daybreak

"_Feels like we're livin' in a battleground..." - The Rolling Stones, "Rain Fall Down"_

Sunlight streamed through the dusty glass of the windshield, casting its warm golden glow onto Beth's sleeping face. Groaning, the female Hunter stirred, lifting up one hand to shade against the relentless glare as she cautiously opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was a seemingly endless sea of leafy green - the tall stalks of corn surrounding the van were almost as tall as the vehicle itself, creating a ragged horizon line between the earth and the sky.

Biting back a yawn, Beth sat up and stretched, rolling her shoulders a few times, cracking her neck from side to side to work out any kinks - after the years of physical abuse her body had suffered over the years, sleeping upright in the front seat of a van certainly wasn't doing it any favors.

Rubbing her eyes, she glanced over at the driver's side, an apology for dozing off ready on her lips - but the adjacent seat was vacant, its door hanging ajar. The female Hunter stared at the empty seat for several lengthy seconds, her pale blue eyes narrowing a touch, before twisting around to peer back into the windowless rear portion of the vehicle.

The van's back doors were open as well; beyond the vehicle lay more rows of corn, the narrow curving slice of road with its deep tire ruts - the one that had led them to this tiny clearing - the only break in its ocean of viridescence. The early morning Iowan sunshine was even more prevalent back here, its persistent brilliance making Jeff's lean frame appear more silhouette than substance.

The daredevil Hunter sat against one of the interior walls, legs up to his chest, elbows on knees, head bowed and bobbing to the beat of some unheard song. His Bluetooth communication device was plugged into one ear, and Beth could see the thin white cord of an ear bud dangling from the other. Right on cue - as though he could feel her gazing at him - Jeff glanced up, removing the ear bud and tucking it back into his pocket with the surreptitious ease of a magician, finger-combing his long red-and-purple-dyed hair back from his face. "Mornin', sunshine. Sleep well?"

The female Hunter rolled her eyes, pressing her fist against her mouth to suppress another yawn. "Please tell me you have coffee back there."

Jeff's mouth twisted upward in a wry half-smile. "Well, I was _going_ to pick some up, maybe even stop at that little cafe downtown and grab a few of those great cinnamon rolls - but Bossman told me to stay put instead, so, eh, what could I do?" He punctuated this statement by lifting both shoulders in a comical shrug.

Beth didn't return his grin. "What's the status?"

Jeff's smile waned a bit. "You know, you're getting to be as bad as our fearless leader." Sitting up, he touched his Bluetooth with one finger, his demeanor and tone sobering as he subtly shifted back into Hunter mode. "I just checked in with Maria - all five of our targets came back about an hour or two before dawn. They went into the barn, and since then, no one's set foot in or outside the perimeter we established."

The daredevil Hunter leaned his head back against the van wall, his emerald irises intense and bright with anticipation. "Whatever they've got going on in there, their only way in _or _out is through that barn - once we seal that off, they'll have nowhere to run." He hesitated for a moment, then added, a trifle tentatively: "Although...I _really_ wish we had the big man with us right now-"

"Don't we all?" Beth interjected brusquely, her tone distant, as though she was speaking to herself as well as Jeff. She paused, her gaze drifting back over toward the empty driver's side seat. "By the way...where _is_ John, anyway?"

The daredevil Hunter's sardonic grin reappeared. "Where do you think?" He nodded out toward the verdant expanse encompassing them.

"_Out there_."

* * *

The lead Hunter stood stock-still amongst the corn plants, as motionless as one of the ragtag scarecrows scattered throughout the fields, his thumbs hooked into the loops of his gun belt. His back was to Beth as she made her approach, drawing to a halt at his left elbow.

The female Hunter balanced carefully on the narrow strip of earth between the rows. The corn leaves brushed roughly against her bare arms, making her skin itch, and she could hear the annoying whine of mosquitos as they whizzed past her ears.

Cena didn't turn around; didn't so much as shift his gaze in her direction. "You're awake." It was a flat declarative statement, uttered without the slightest trace of affection or emotion.

"Good morning to you, too," Beth replied sourly, slapping her arm to dislodge a mosquito that had decided to alight there. It couldn't have been more than an hour past sunrise, but already it felt like an oven outside; beads of sweat were trickling down the back of her protective leather vest, tickling as they traveled down her skin, and each breath she drew into her lungs seemed to be full of corn dust.

Cena, on the other hand, appeared totally unaffected by the heat; he wasn't even sweating, despite his usual all-black attire. His expression was unreadable, fixed in that countenance of his that was entirely focused and yet entirely _elsewhere._

That look had always unnerved the female Hunter, and now was no exception; in spite of the humidity, she felt a chill ripple through her body. There was something unsettling about the detachment in Cena's blue irises - if anything, it was a reminder that deep down, her leader and lover was just as broken as the rest of them; that there was a part of him, some vital _human _part, that had been missing long before they had ever met, and thus, a side of him that would forever be beyond her reach.

Beth snapped her mouth shut, and instead followed the lead Hunter's line of sight, staring out across the swath of corn plants where, like a whale breaching the surface of the water, the peaked roof of a barn broke above the ragged green leaves.

For several long minutes, neither one of them spoke; merely stood side by side, gazing at the target of their lengthy search and surveillance. Finally, Beth cleared her throat, swinging her pale blue irises back toward Cena. "You know..." she ventured tentatively. "...maybe we _should_ wait until night." She waved her hand in the direction of the barn as she spoke. "We've got this place wired within an inch of its life, Maria will know if one of them so much as sneezes - and with Dave here, we'll _really_ have an advantage."

There was no answer from the lead Hunter, which was _never_ a good sign, but Beth pressed on, turning around to fully face her lover. "You _know_ that we need him for this." It was an assertion rather than a suggestion. "He's _talked_ with these vamps; he knows how they _think_-"

"We don't have time to wait," Cena interrupted tersely. "Once they learn that Darren and Titus are gone - if they don't know already - they'll scatter like roaches." He tilted his head up, squinting at the sun beating down on them both. "As long as the sun's overhead, they've got nowhere to run. We'll flush them out-"

"But we don't even know what's down there!" the female Hunter protested. She reached out, grabbing onto his arm. "Isn't that one of the first things you taught me - never chase a vamp into his lair unless you know all the twists and turns he can possibly take?" Once again, there was no answer. Beth glanced back toward the barn, shaking her head stubbornly. "I'm _telling_ you, we _need_ the big man-"

"And _I'm_ telling _you_ this isn't a _discussion_, _Phoenix_." The lead Hunter's tone was clipped and frosty, indicating that any further argument would be viewed as a sign of insubordination. Pulling himself free from her grip, he unhooked his thumbs from his belt, crossing his muscular arms over his chest. "I've made my decision."

_Of course you have..._ the blond woman thought bitterly. _...and it never is - at least as far as Dave's concerned..._

Before she could actually voice any of this, a crashing sound rippled through the rows of corn, accompanied by muffled cursing. A second later, Jeff tumbled into view, stomping through the corn stalks with all the grace of a bull elephant in a china shop, coughing as he struggled to catch his breath. "I swear to God - I don't know how these farmer guys do it." he eventually managed to say. The daredevil hunter shook his head, sucking in a labored lungful of air. "This shit gets in your throat - if we make it out of here today, I'm never eating corn again as long as I live-"

Beth, however, wasn't listening to her team member's tirade; her attention was still focused on Cena, the slight tightness of her features the only indicator that she was at all displeased. She reached back, her fingers grazing the curve of her compound bow. "How do you want to do this?"

"Hard and fast," the lead Hunter replied curtly. He pulled out one of his twin Desert Eagle .44s, sunlight glinting off the etched letters along the barrel that read _REGRET NOTHING_. "Quiet if possible, nasty if necessary." He ejected the clip, checking the full load of silver-coated ammunition before slamming it back home emphatically. "Either way...none of them leave that barn alive."

Cena re-holstered his weapon, his piercing blue eyes once more resuming their look of intense remoteness. "Let's go." Pushing aside the corn stalks, he moved forward, the other two following suit as they slowly made their way toward the barn.

* * *

The barn was massive, with abandoned horse stalls lining both sides. The rotting wooden floor was covered with discarded hay, and shafts of yellow sunlight poured down through several jagged holes in the dilapidated roof. Except for a few cooing pigeons fluttering up amid the creaking rafters, it was completely deserted.

Cena ground to a halt, holding up one hand to indicate that his team members should do the same. Without speaking, he pointed toward the center of the barn, where the stray hay had been cleared away from a large closed trapdoor set into the floor. Next to it lay a steel chain and padlock, the sunshine winking off their metal contours.

Together, the trio circled cautiously around the wooden barrier. Unholstering one of his .44s, Cena crouched down, grabbing hold of the iron ring handle. With one sudden fluid motion, he hoisted the door up and open, allowed it to fall back against the hay-covered floor while he stepped forward, lifting his weapon up into a ready stance.

Nothing rushed out to meet them. The trio of Hunters leaned over, peering warily down into the hole. The sunlight streaming down through the open trapdoor illuminated a patch of dirt floor about six or seven feet below them, surrounded on all sides by total darkness.

Jeff's features twisted with resigned consternation. "Shit. We're going to have to go down there...aren't we?" The daredevil Hunter sighed, straightening up and casting a look around the barn. "Let me see if I can find a ladder-"

The sentence was not even out of his mouth before Cena jumped down into the hole, his combat boots thudding softly against the packed earth. Jeff shot his teammate a look; one which seemed to say _Why do I even bother?..._ before dropping down after him. Beth lingered up above an extra minute, taking the time to remove her compound bow and quiver - in the darkness, with no sense of what lay below them, they would only hinder her - and lay them to the side before lowering herself into the hole as well.

Down here, the blackness was even more overwhelming, pressing up against them like a tangible presence, and the blond woman found herself involuntarily drawing back into the square of light as though it was a protective circle. Although she had spent over a decade battling in the shadows, there was something primally unsettling about total darkness - the way it could simultaneously swallow you up and make you feel completely exposed...the way it could penetrate you to the core and infuse you with its absence of _everything_, reducing you to your basest state.

Gradually, as her eyes adjusted somewhat, the female Hunter was able to ascertain that they had descended into what looked like an underground basement. The walls and floors were comprised of earth, bolstered up by wooden beams that were probably older than all of their ages combined. The sprawling space where they stood was about half as large as the barn interior above it, and Beth could just make out several darker patches of shade where tunnels snaked off into the unknown.

A hand touched her arm, and Beth turned to see Cena staring at her. The lead Hunter pointed to his eyes, then to her, then to the tunnel entrance nearest them. The blond woman comprehended immediately what he meant, and fumbled at the back of her gun belt for her night vision goggles.

Cena repeated the same gestures to Jeff, then unsnapped his own pair, donning them and pulling them down over his eyes. Drawing their weapons almost precisely in unison, the trio split up, stepping out the protective square of light into the welcoming darkness.

* * *

Beth made her way slowly down the narrow tunnel, her back pressed against the rough dirt wall, her gun down at her side with her finger resting lightly on the trigger guard. Her senses were on high alert, magnifying even the smallest sounds to the nth degree, making even her quiet intake of breath seem as loud as a windstorm.

The female Hunter's toe hit a small dip in the dirt beneath her feet, and she momentarily lost her balance, grabbing onto the wall for support and uttering a few profane epithets under her breath. She had always hated night vision goggles; to her, there was something incredibly disturbing about the way it colored the world in shades of sickly green, turning everyone into demonic versions of themselves - but more than that, it was an unpleasant reminder of the limitations she possessed as a human hunting vampires; limitations she could counter, but never fully overcome.

In a way, it was almost funny - she could drill an arrow into a bloodsucker's eye socket from fifty yards away, but turn off the lights and she turned into a bumbling idiot, stumbling through the murk like a bull trying to walk across eggshells without breaking them. The goggles afforded her sight, but that was all - they didn't give her an advantage; they merely leveled the playing field for a bit - and for not the first time, she found herself envying Dave's ability to see in the dark; to move through the shadows like he was a part of them...

At the thought of the vampire, Beth felt a frown crease her face. It was starting to become even more apparent; Cena's standoffishness, his inability to fully accept Dave as a member of the team - the way he kept the big man at arm's length, excluding him from the hunt even when Dave's presence would have given them the upper hand. The vampire never complained - Beth had to give him that - but even _she_ could tell that this detachment, this unwarranted lack of trust, was starting to get to him.

Part of it was unavoidable - the fact that the big man and the Hunter team had once been on opposing sides; the fact that even though she had been dead for the last three years, Dave's sire still cast a very long shadow. But deep down, Beth had always suspected that the roots of the lead Hunter's animosity toward Dave _truly_ lay...in the tragic figure of the late Mickie James.

Even though he would never go so far as to voice it aloud, it was no real secret that Cena resented the vampire's relationship with Mickie - not just for reaching her in the depths of her despair when no one could, but also for being a link in the chain of events that had led to her death. And it didn't matter that Mickie had died happier than she had lived, or that the love between her and Dave had ultimately produced Hope - because that didn't change the fact that she was _gone_, and to Cena, death was just like his will: _irrevocable_.

No one talked about it, but Beth was pretty sure that they had all thought it at one time or another, and Cena most of all - that if Dave and Mickie had never met, then maybe Rob James' little sister would still be alive...

_Skritch._

The female Hunter ground to an abrupt halt, every muscle in her body tensing, her skin prickling up into goosebumps. The faint noise she had heard had been subtle - but just out of sync enough with her own movements for her to grasp that it hadn't been her. The blond woman remained motionless, holding her breath, trying to will every function of her body into silence as she strained to hear the sound once more-

_Skritch._

Beth's finger slipped through the guard, tightening over the trigger, and she whipped around, holding the gun out in front of her with both hands. The tight passageway behind her was empty, the earthen walls and wooden beams stark and ominous in the unseen light of the night-vision goggles.

The female Hunter stared at the vacant tunnel for a few seconds more before cautiously lowering the gun. Shaking her head, she turned back around - and that was when the vampire materialized out the darkness like a demon out of Hell, fangs bared and fingers curved into claws, lunging toward her with a snarl.

Beth didn't scream - there wasn't time. She didn't even think; merely _reacted_ purely out of reflex. She saw the bloodsucker's fist hurtling toward her face, and arched backward, which kept her head from being taken clean off her shoulders from his first frenzied swing - but it wasn't enough to prevent his knuckles from crashing into the point of her chin, sending a lightning bolt of white-hot force rocketing up into her brain and knocking her back. She hit the wall shoulder-first and slid down, the gun flying out of her hand, her cheek slamming against the dirt floor. Through the wooziness crawling over her brain, the blond woman heard something _crack_, and the washed-out greenish world in the lens of her goggles abruptly flickered - then went totally black.

Seconds ticked by, but they felt like years as the female Hunter lay there, momentarily stunned. Then, as it always did, instinct took over, and she ripped the now-useless goggles off her face, tossing them aside as she struggled to assess her situation. She was in a vampire's lair, separated from her teammates, blind and weaponless. Her best option would be go back the way she had come, but in her disoriented state, she could no longer remember which direction that was - any move she took could just end up taking her deeper down the rabbit hole.

Mustering all of her willpower, Beth pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, struggling to control her labored breathing long enough to get a sense of what lay beyond it. The darkness was like a shroud, robbing her not only of her sight - her most valued asset - but tamping down her other senses as well; for all she knew, the vamp could have run off to warn his partners of her presence...or he could be mere inches away, watching and waiting for her to climb back to her feet-

The bloodsucker's boot slammed into her abdomen, driving all the air from her body and lifting her a few inches off the ground. The female Hunter uttered a strangled gurgle, choking on the sour bile climbing up her throat. A hand grabbed her throat, clamping down with all the force and pressure of a steel vise, cutting off her already limited flow of air and yanking her bodily to a standing position. Beth felt her back hit the earthen wall hard, sending another bright streak of pain racing across her bruised shoulder, and she flailed wildly; scratching, kicking, trying to suck enough air into her lungs to force out a cry for help.

All of her struggles ceased, however, as the cold barrel of the gun dug into her cheek, accompanied by the soft ominous click of the hammer being drawn back. A dry rasping chuckle rippled up out of the darkness. "Well, well, _well_ - what have we _here_?"

Even though she couldn't see his face, Beth still had no problem envisioning the smile that she heard in the bloodsucker's voice. Slowly, with fingers that she could barely feel through the intense throbbing in her skull, she groped at her gun belt.

The vampire went on, jamming the gun even harder against her cheek - she could feel it digging into her gums."Hm...you don't _look _all that threatening - don't tell me _you're_ the thing we're all supposed to be scared of."

Fighting the urge to spit in his face - only because she probably would have missed - the blond woman instead forced herself to remain calm, hoping that the bloodsucker was so focused on watching her squirm that he failed to notice the tentative exploration she was making of her remaining equipment. Her fingertips finally located the object of their search - the rounded edge of a small rectangular box - and it took everything the female Hunter had to repress the relief that flooded through her body.

Just because she was weaponless...didn't mean that she was unarmed.

The bloodsucker let out another menacing chuckle, his breath a hot fetid mixture of blood and beer that made Beth's stomach turn. "Too bad; we could have had a little fun-"

At this point, the blond woman's thoughts were starting to fade in and out, but she dug in, and with one last burst of willpower, she snatched the box off her belt, simultaneously flicking a switch and jamming it into her attacker's face.

One of the first lessons that all bloodsuckers learned was to stay out of the sunshine - but what most of them failed to comprehend was that it wasn't the _sun_ they needed to be afraid of; it was the ultraviolet rays contained within the light...and that, when utilized properly, a small UV lamp could be just as devastatingly powerful as a sunrise.

After so much darkness, the purplish-white illumination that the box emitted dazzled her senses - but that was nothing compared to what happened to the vampire. His words devolved into an agonized yowl, and he released both her and the gun, clutching his face with both hands, tendrils of smoke leaking out between his fingers as he screamed in pain.

Beth sank to the floor, coughing and massaging her bruised throat while the vampire staggered away from her, still holding his face and wailing. In the faint light, Beth saw her revolver lying on the ground, and grabbed it, bringing it up and squeezing the trigger - but she was still lightheaded from lack of oxygen, and the shot went wild, thudding into the earthen wall as the bloodsucker disappeared around the bend of the tunnel.

Climbing back to her feet, reeling a little, the female Hunter stumbled after her attacker, gun out in front of her and ready to fire. She had forgotten about Cena, about Jeff, about getting out of this underground tomb alive - the only thing that mattered to her now was chasing down that fanged shithead and seeing the look of stunned surprise on his face right before his body dissolved into ash-

Beth stumbled, her injured shoulder slamming into the wall, her footing almost deserting her completely. In this perfect darkness, with only the faint luminescence of a UV lamp to guide her path, she felt like she was trapped in a funhouse, where the walls moved and the floor rippled beneath her feet. Gritting her teeth, she righted herself, and took another turn, another - and then all of a sudden, the walls of the passageway opened up, and the figure of the vampire swam into view.

The bloodsucker was hunched over, whimpering and wiping his nose with the back of his hand. At the female Hunter's approach, his head shot up and he let a venomous hiss."You _bitch_!" he spat. In the subtle light, Beth saw that the entire left side of his face was blistered and burned, the wounds oozing blood and pus. His countenance was full of hatred - but also disbelief, as though he hadn't realized until now that he _could_ be hurt; that he _could_ be made to bleed.

Tears of agony leaked from his eyes, and Beth saw for the first time how _young_ he was - he couldn't have been older than nineteen or twenty when he was turned. "You fucking _bitch_ - look what you did to my _face_-"

The female Hunter's response was to advance toward him, thrusting the UV light out in front of her - she didn't even care about the gun anymore; all she wanted at this moment was to fry this fucker alive - and that was when four more pair of red eyes flicked open in the blackness behind her prey.

For a fraction of a second, Beth went rigid with shock, then backed away, the words tumbling out of her throat in a hoarse whisper: "Shit, shit-" The eyes drew together, like a gathering storm cloud. All at once, they flew toward her, and the blond woman turned and ran, her voice now a full-fledged scream:

"_Shit_!"

She had only the most rudimentary sense of where she was going - the UV light clutched in her hand provided only a bouncing flash. She didn't look back - to spare even one instant of hesitation with five vampires on her tail would have meant certain death. Instead, Beth just _ran_, the breath tearing out of her in furious pants, her heart beating almost to the point of exploding.

She rounded a corner, noting almost unconsciously that the walls of the tunnel were beginning to lighten - she must be drawing near the entrance up to the barn. Suddenly, more shadows loomed up in front of her, and for a moment, Beth was certain she was done for - until she heard Cena's deep roar:

"_Phoenix! Get down!_"

The female Hunter didn't argue; merely obeyed, dropping to the floor and skidding across the dirt like a baseball player sliding toward home base. She hadn't even come to a complete stop before shots rang out, the noise deafening in the narrow contained space.

Beth instinctively covered her head with her arms. She was aware of everything; every sensation, every _sound _- the cold dampness of dirt against her cheek, the metallic _pings_ of bullet casings as they rained down around her, the agonized screams of the vampires that turned into rasping gurgles as their bodies disintegrated into dust - but at the same time, felt strangely detached from it, as though her mind had been encased in a protective bubble and was watching her body from a distance.

And then it was over, the last shell hitting the ground, the last shot echoing into silence - and through the overwhelming ringing in her ears, Beth could hear the lead Hunter yelling once again, this time to _Cease fire_...

The female Hunter sat up, coughing - the air was thick and choked with cordite, its sharp acrid taste filling her mouth. A hand appeared in the line of her vision, and she looked up to see Jeff - even in almost total darkness, she could still distinguish between her two teammates - standing over her. His mouth moved; the voice that emerged sounded as though it was coming from the end of a long hallway. "You good, Phoenix?" Beth nodded wordlessly, and grabbing hold of the daredevil Hunter's hand, she used it to pull herself back to her feet.

As she did, Cena brushed past her, striding into the void that, moments before, had been occupied by five living bloodsuckers - a space which now contained only heaps of dirty gray ash...and one trembling survivor.

Despite the hail of bullets that had been flying seconds ago, the dark-haired young man crouched on the floor before them had emerged..._mostly..._unscathed; he was clutching his right arm, dark blood streaming through his fingers, his handsome features fixed in a pinched look of pain. He let out a frightened yelp as Cena grabbed a handful of his plaid shirt, hauling him up to his feet and pressing the smoking barrel of the .44 against his forehead with the other. "What's your name?" the lead Hunter barked.

The surviving vampire stared up at him uncomprehendingly, as though Cena had just addressed him in Klingon. "Wuh-what?"

"Your _name_," the lead Hunter reiterated impatiently. He punctuated the statement by drawing back the Desert Eagle's hammer. "_What is it_?"

"M-M-_Maddox_!" the dark-haired vampire blurted out fearfully, revealing a flash of fangs behind his quivering lips. "B-Brad Maddox!"

"Well, then, _Brad Maddox_," Cena replied flatly. "In case you haven't _figured it out_ - my team and I are confiscating your _merchandise_." He paused, his blue eyes narrowing. "_Where are they_?"

Brad shook his head vehemently, a panicked mewling sound escaping his throat. "I-I _can't_!" he babbled. "I can't _tell_ you! M-my bosses - they'll _kill_ me-"

"How _unfortunate_," the lead Hunter interrupted, his deep voice holding just the faintest touch of sarcasm. "See, because..._I'm _gonna kill you if you _don't_..." He jammed the gun even harder against Maddox's forehead, forcing his head back, and the vampire let out a low moan. "...and _trust me_...I will _take my time_."

Maddox's eyes widened, darting frantically back and forth between the massive weapon pressed to his skull, and the face of the unrelenting Hunter wielding it. Cena's azure irises were unblinking...but in their depths burned pure murder. His lips moved, spitting out two final words:

"_Your move_."

* * *

The tunnel Maddox led them down was narrower and even more claustrophobic than any of the others. As they made their way toward its culminating point, Beth's nostrils picked up the unmistakable stench of bodily functions - urine, feces, vomit - along with another, less tangible, but just as potent...the pungent reek of fear.

The bloodsucker halted, and the female Hunter gagged, covering her nose and mouth with her hand - the smell was even stronger here, the various unpleasant aromas combining into a single potent miasma that made her nauseous. Cautiously, she moved forward, holding her UV lamp in front of her like a flashlight. Her eyes were finally growing accustomed to the omnipresent darkness, and in the soft purplish glow of the lamp, she was able to make out at least a dozen padlocked dog crates, all of them containing huddled forms that stared back at her with wet frightened eyes...

Beth gasped. "Oh my God..." She looked back at the others, her pale blue eyes wide with shock and revulsion. "_Children_. They're all _children_."

Jeff whirled around, glaring at the dark-haired vampire with righteous fury. "Oh, you sick _fuck_-"

He lunged at Maddox, but Cena stepped forward, swiftly inserting himself between them. "Hardy!" The lead Hunter's tone was soft, but brimming with indisputable authority. Jeff froze, his fist still raised in midair. "You and Phoenix get the kids out." Cena swung his gaze back toward the bloodsucker, leveling the muzzle of the .44 right between his eyes. "_I'll _deal with _him_."

For a moment, the daredevil Hunter looked as though he wanted to contend this directive, but after a moment or two, he lowered his fist, shooting Maddox a meaningful glower before heading over to join Beth, who was already in front of the first cage, lock picks out and at the ready.

The dark-haired vampire gulped, raising his wounded arm gingerly in a show of surrender. "Hey, man..." he whispered. "I did...what you wanted..." There was no answer from the lead Hunter. Maddox swallowed hard once more, his gaze darting past Cena to the cluster of cages filling the cramped space. "What - this? I...I just do what I'm told..."

The bloodsucker lifted both shoulders in an apologetic shrug, as if to say _Aw shucks... "_I mean...it's nothing _personal - _I'm just trying to make a living-"

The gun roared, and the underground prison was immediately filled with the screams of terrified children. Maddox dropped to one knee, his skin ashen, his mouth moving silently as he held onto what remained of his right arm - everything below the elbow was gone, leaving behind an oozing stump with dripping strands of ragging tissue and sinew.

Cena lifted the gun up once more, his azure stare steady and unblinking. "You're selling _children_ as _bleeders_; little lap dogs for rich vamps to feed on whenever they get the munchies...and you want to _justify _it by saying that you're _just following orders_?" His countenance was taut with disgust. "I ought to throw you in one of those cages and use you for target practice-"

Maddox's eyes were glassy with agony and shock; looking at everything, focusing on nothing. Somehow, he managed to push himself back up, balancing unsteadily on the balls of his feet before taking a tentative step away from the lead Hunter. "Go ahead." His voice was dull and inflectionless. "It won't be any worse than what _she'll_ do to me if she finds out I talked-"

At this, Cena's eyebrows came together in a tiny frown. "Who?"

The dark-haired vampire didn't seem to hear him; it was as though he had forgotten the lead Hunter's presence. "Even Titus and Darren are scared of her - they call her 'that blond bitch'." He abruptly laughed; the sound of it high-pitched and teetering on the brink of hysteria. "She knows everything. She _sees everything_. She's _everywhere _- and she'll come after me."

Maddox let out another shrill chuckle, his face creasing in a lunatic grin. "After me...just like she'll come after _you-"_

"Who are you talking about?" Cena demanded. He advanced toward the dark-haired bloodsucker, his combat boots thudding against the dirt floor. "_Who_?"

Maddox slowly lifted his head, his eyes meeting the lead Hunter's - and in a way, this single glance was more terrifying than the display of madness that had preceded it...because the look in his gaze was painfully sane. The vampire opened his mouth; the two words that emerged were soft, but perfectly enunciated:

"_Bloody Mary_."

Before Cena could ask what that meant, the dark-haired vampire abruptly turned and sprinted full-speed back down the tunnel. The lead Hunter brought the .44 up, but Maddox was already out of sight before he even had the chance to aim. Swearing under his breath, Cena dashed after him, bumping against the dirt walls, struggling to move through the encompassing blackness that hindered him.

Just as he reached the large central room, he heard an agonizing scream, immediately accompanied by a sudden rush of heat and the reek of burning flesh. Turning around the final bend, the lead Hunter stopped dead, the arm holding the Desert Eagle sagging back down to his side.

Brad Maddox stood in the single square of sunshine, his burning figure twisting and writhing as it was consumed, his cries becoming less and less recognizable as he was burned alive. For a few seconds, the body remained standing, still frozen in the motion of reaching up toward the sun, as though seeking some sort of solace in its deadly rays - and then it collapsed, crumbling into a formless pile of ash and cinder.

Footsteps echoed behind him, and an instant later, the other two Hunters burst out of the tunnel, both of them coming to a halt as they beheld the aftermath of Maddox's suicide run.

Jeff looked away, shaking his head. "Yeesh..." he remarked with no small amount of distaste. "Never would have expected it out of that guy - what a way to go-"

Cena wasn't listening, however; he couldn't stop Maddox's final words from reverberating in his skull, uttered with both fear and awe-

_She'll come after me...just like she'll come after YOU..._

_ Bloody Mary..._

* * *

"Ready? Up we go."

Cena handed the last kid up to Jeff, then jumped and grabbed hold of the trapdoor frame, using his upper body strength to pull himself out of the hole. Once he had regained his footing, the lead Hunter flipped the trap door shut with his combat boot, sealing off the basement and the charnel house of horrors concealed within its network of tunnels.

All told, there had been fourteen children in that underground prison; the oldest one couldn't have more than seven or eight. Jeff and Cena had lifted them out of the basement one by one, and they now sat single file inside one of the empty horse stalls, blinking dumbly in the early morning light - which had to seem blinding after their time spent underground - their small faces streaked with with dirt and tear stains.

Cena dusted himself off, his strong features unreadable as he looked over at Jeff. "Have the cops been notified?"

The daredevil Hunter nodded, somewhat vacantly; it was clear that he was still trying to come to grips with what they had seen beneath the barn. "Maria called them - they should be on their way-" Right on cue, the faint sound of police sirens drifted through the still morning air.

The lead Hunter returned the gesture. "That's our cue - Phoenix?" He looked over at Beth, who had retrieved some bottled water from the van and was passing it amongst the kids, moving down the line to check them for injuries. Pouring a little into her hand, she gently wiped the blood and dirt off the features of a little girl. The child - who was staring up at the female Hunter with a mixture of awe and wariness, as though she had just met Wonder Woman - suddenly threw her arms around Beth's neck, clinging to her fiercely. Stunned, the blond woman just sat there frozen for a few seconds before hesitantly returning the embrace.

"_Phoenix_," Cena's voice was more emphatic this time, and quavering slightly at the edges, as though he was trying to tamp down some strong emotion within him. "_We have to go_."

With evident reluctance, Beth disentangled the little girl's arms from around her neck. "We need to leave, sweetheart," she whispered, her own voice breaking. "But the police will be here soon, and they'll take you back home to your mommy." Impulsively, she trailed her fingers down the girl's cheek. "You're safe now." Biting her lip, she turned away and rose to her feet, hoping that the child hadn't glimpsed the tears that were stinging her eyes.

The three Hunters exited the barn, heading toward the makeshift pathway they had cut through the fields of corn - by the time the police arrived and discovered their trail, they would be safely back at the base. Beth tilted her face up toward the sun, letting its warmth caress her skin, wondering if this was how the children must have felt when they had emerged from the hole and seen the sky for the first time in who knows how long...

"Mister! Hey, mister, wait!"

The trio stopped, turning back to see a little boy come dashing out of the barn after them. Beth took a step toward him, but Cena held his hand out, indicating that she should stay put. The little boy halted, staring up at the lead Hunter, his features filled with an amalgamation of curiosity and fearlessness. "Where're you going?"

Now Cena stepped forward, staring impassively down at the kid. "We have to go. The police will be here soon - they'll take care of you-" He turned away, but the boy impulsively reached out and grabbed his hand - and in that single moment, Beth saw something in the lead Hunter's face she'd never imagined she'd see; a look of such longing and vulnerability so acute that it made her want to weep.

The little boy continued to peer up at him; Beth noticed for the first time that he was wearing a faded Avengers t-shirt. He bit his lip thoughtfully, his gaze never leaving Cena's. "Are...are you a superhero?"

For several lengthy moments, the lead Hunter didn't move - then, slowly, he knelt down, reaching out to tousle the boy's dingy blond hair. There was so much familiarity and affection in the gesture, as though it was something he had once done countless times before, and Beth felt one of those rare moments of revelation wash over her - that the wall of impenetrable stoicism Cena maintained had just cracked open, allowing her to see just a glimpse of the secrets locked up inside him...

Cena's voice was so low she almost didn't hear him, and the blond woman couldn't tell if he was speaking to the boy...or just himself:

"I...I'm no hero, kid."

With that, he stood, turning away, his features briefly sagging with unimaginable pain and torment - and then that, too, melted from his expression, as though it had never even existed. He pushed past his subordinates, his gait slightly unsteady and more rapid than it had been a second ago, as though he was trying to put distance not just between himself and the barn...but between himself and the child as well.

The little boy stood there silently, watching his three rescuers merge back into the corn fields. After a while, their black-clad forms melded into the green, the rustling leaves resuming their stillness...as though the trio had never been there to begin with.


	4. Chapter 4: A New Breed

**A/N: NEW CHAPTER! GodDAMNit, I hate this chapter. It took me the longest time just getting it down the first time, and then revising it - it was like pulling teeth. The end was what killed me, and I think I might have given up, so I do apologize that it's not my best work. I may need to step back from this for a bit - it's getting so I can't see the forest for the trees, and that's never a good thing. But I do hope you enjoy it, I really do. PEACE!**

**Thank you to **Esha Napoleon, therealchamps, **and **BigRedMachineUK **for your reviews! I really do appreciate it! HUGS! HUGS AND PUPPIES!**

Chapter 3: A New Breed

"_I've come to bring you hell..." - Fuel, "Won't Back Down"_

* * *

The bedroom door swung open, and Beth strode in, removing her compound bow and quiver from the modified holder on her back. Cena followed her, quietly closing the door behind them, unbuckling his gun belt and removing the pair of Desert Eagle .44s from their holsters.

For the next several minutes, neither one of them said anything; merely busied themselves in silence with the habitual chore of unloaded and cleaning their weapons before storing the equipment in its designated spots - the bow on a set of hooks screwed into the wall; the arrows, empty guns, and ammunition on top of an old wardrobe. Hope was at that age where she was getting into everything, and none of them - Dave most of all - wanted her to accidentally discover a handgun with an unused round in the chamber while she was playing.

Beth finished first, reaching up to tug her elastic hand band loose, her golden tresses falling down around her face. She ran both hands through her hair, then turned away with a sigh, unbuttoning the front of her leather vest and gingerly shrugging - her shoulder was still a throbbing knot of pain from where the vamp had thrown her against the dirt wall, and she was more than certain that it was going to be stiff and swollen by nightfall.

Cena glanced over at her, his gaze softening almost imperceptibly. "Something on your mind, Beth?"

The female Hunter paused, unable to suppress a shiver that was almost acutely painful in its intensity. This was the only time that the lead Hunter ever called her by her first name - here, safely back at base, shut away from the other members of the group - the only time that their relationship transformed into something other than that of a leader and his subordinate.

It was strange; the conflicting mixture of emotions that rose up inside her during these moments. On the one hand, she craved it; craved the warmth, the intimacy, after so much time spent in the dark and cold - but at the same time, she feared it.

Feared it not just because it reminded her of what she had lost...but because that until this war was won, until there was a reason to stop fighting, love would always be one of those things she could not afford to carry with her.

Beth bowed her head. "Nothing - just-" She hesitated, choosing her next words carefully, lifting her gaze up to stare at the wall ahead of her, which was decorated with several examples of Hope's artwork. "-I can't stop thinking about those kids we saved - about how the police and probably even their parents are going to tell that they're wrong; that they _didn't_ see vampires down there; that they'd be better off just forgetting what they saw. And some of them _will_...but some of them - like that boy who ran after us-" She drew in a deep shuddering breath. "-some of them _won't_."

The blond woman squeezed her eyes shut for an instant. "And I wonder...how many of them are going to grow up angry and bitter and scarred, letting what they saw fester inside them - so that as soon as they get old enough, they go out searching for answers the same way that you and I did?"

The lead Hunter, in the process of removing his Kevlar vest, stopped and stared at her, the room's faint illumination leaving half of his strongly-featured face in shadow. "What are you saying - that we shouldn't have saved them?" His tone was flat, but there was a hint of anger lurking at the edges of it.

The female Hunter rapidly shook her head. '_No_! Of _course_ not! But even _you _have to agree that _this life-_-" She turned a little, gesturing between the two of them. "-shouldn't be anyone's destiny." Tears suddenly climbed up her throat, choking her, and she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, her shoulders hitching slightly as she struggled to stifle them.

Cena, perhaps finally sensing the full extent of the emotional turmoil taking place inside her, stepped forward, his face registering sympathy. "Beth-"

Beth's head shot up at the sound of his voice, her eyes bright with involuntary anger behind the veil of tears, her own tone low and bitter. "We _could _have waited until nightfall. You _know _that we could dipshits - they only got the upper hand on us because _they_ can see in the dark and _we _can't - but they would have been no match for Dave; he would have torn them apart."

The female Hunter swallowed hard, shaking her head slowly. "But _no_, you had to be _stubborn_, just like you _always_ are - and because of that, I almost got _killed_-"

"Don't do that," There was anger in Cena's voice now, too; genuine ire that he was clearly trying to hold back. "Don't try and act like this is all _my_ fault; like I _forced _you to go down into that cellar." The lead Hunter's boots thudded against the warped floorboards as he came toward her. "You're a big girl, Beth; you can take care of yourself. You _know_ the risks that we face every time we head out-"

"I _know_ that!" Beth shot back. "But with Dave on our team, we have an advantage - so why the _hell_ aren't we using it?" She stepped forward until she was face-to-face with Cena, staring up at him with absolutely no intimidation - in this room, there was no distinction between leader and subordinate; in this room, they were equals. "He's saved _your_ life, _my_ life, all of us, more times than we can count. We're a _team_, we're supposed to trust one another - but how can we do that if you don't trust _him_?"

"Would you keep your voice down?" the lead Hunter hissed, his voice low, but no less furious.

"Why?" Beth retorted, her tone brimming with sarcasm. "It's not like he doesn't know already! You're not exactly subtle; all of us see the way you treat him."

Her voice dropped to a harsh whisper."In fact, it's amazing that _Hope_ hasn't picked up on it by now-"

As soon as she mentioned the little girl's name, Beth knew that she had crossed a line. Cena drew back, his expression shutting down into that unreadable countenance that she hated; that blank mask that was both a facade and a crutch. "Don't drag her into this-"

"Why _do _you hate him so much?" Beth pressed. In the back of her mind, she was aware that she was treading dangerously close to the point of no return, but she kept going.. "It's not _just_ because of what he is."

Her pale blue eyes narrowed. "It's because of Mickie...isn't it?"

For a _moment_, a _heartbeat_ of time, something dark and ugly flickered across Cena's face like a shadow cast by candlelight, and the blond woman found herself involuntarily taking a step back. "Mickie's _dead_," the lead Hunter eventually spat, his tone lifeless. "She's _dead_, she's _gone_ - and she's got _nothing_ to do with this-"

"No," The female Hunter shook her head. Her countenance had become just as impassive as Cena's, but her eyes blazed blue fire. "No...she has _everything_ to do with this, and we _both_ know it._"_

As soon as she said it, Beth knew that she had gone too far. Snapping her mouth closed and averting her gaze, she stormed over toward the pair of cots in the sleeping area, angrily stripping off her dusty clothes. She sank down onto her cot, removing her boots and pants before swinging her legs up onto the bed frame and turning her back on Cena.

The abrupt motion sent another hot lightning bolt of pain rocketing across her bruised shoulder, and the blond woman sucked in a sharp breath, reaching back to gently massage it with her fingertips. Her cautious explorations brought another bright hot bubble of pain bursting forth, and Beth let out a reflexive pain-filled gasp.

She heard the quiet thud of the lead Hunter's footsteps behind her, but she didn't turn around - she was still too angry; not just at Cena for his stubbornness...but at herself for thinking that, even after _twelve years _together, she could conceivably change his mind.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cena's Kevlar vest hit the floor, followed by his black t-shirt, then Beth felt the cot sag a bit as the lead Hunter sank down behind her. His hands touched her shoulders, his thumbs gently massaging the base of her neck. The blond woman stiffened, but only for a moment, before gradually relaxing as Cena slowly but methodically worked the tension and stiffness out of her shoulders, back, and neck.

Beth closed her eyes, a soft contented sigh escaping her throat as the soreness finally began to depart her solidly-build frame. As she did, she felt the lead Hunter inch closer, felt the heat from his body soak into hers as his chest pressed against her back, his hands slipping around around to rest against the flat plane of her abdomen.

The female Hunter trailed her hands along the contours of his muscular forearms, her fingers finding and intertwining with his. Cena dipped his head down, his lips caressing the curve of her neck, his breath hot against her skin. Beth heard a low moan escape her as that feeling surged up inside her - that sensation that was far too intimate to be lust, but yet wasn't love because they _weren't_ in love; they were just two lost souls trying to find a little bit of warmth, a little bit of heat, in all this darkness and cold.

Languidly, she turned her head, and Cena captured her mouth with his, his tongue sliding into her mouth, tangling with hers. The blond woman rotated her body around until she was facing him, running her hands slowly down his chest as she kissed him back, her fingertips finding familiar scar tissue and deciphering it like a blind person reading Braille.

This a daybreak in Kansas City. This an ambush in Denver. This, and _this_, and _this..._

Through the drowsy dizzyingly haze that was already beginning to fall over her, she let Cena ease her down onto the cot, aiding him as he peeled away her underwear. She could feel his desire, his urgency, in every kiss and touch and gentle nip that he bestowed on her, but there was no haste, no roughness - as though his only wish was to return the pleasure she was giving him.

It was strange - he was so cold and distant most of the time, but then there were moments like _this _when he could be so unbelievably tender and loving. When they made love - it was like she could almost see the _real_ him; could almost glimpse the man he had been before the tragedy that had turned his heart to stone.

Cena ran his hands slowly up along the inner skin of her thighs, pushing her legs apart. Beth heard him unbuckling his pants, and closed her eyes, unable to bite back a soft cry as he entered her. The lead Hunter pulled her close, burying his face in the crook of her neck, and the blond woman clung to him, riding the rhythm of his thrusts, trying to stifle her moans as his tempo increased.

_I trust you..._ - she thought to herself - ..._with my life. I'd die for you. Maybe part of me even loves you, for whatever that's worth...but at the same time, I still know almost nothing about you - and that scares me, because it means that you haven't let the past go..._

_ None of us have, really, but I think that you're keeping yours alive, deep down, and that's dangerous; the PAST is DANGEROUS-_

And then all of her doubts - along with everything else - ceased to matter as the orgasm crashed over her.

* * *

_Miami, Florida _

It was a few minutes past one. At this time of night, the bars and nightclubs of South Beach were still in full swing, colored strobe lights flashing, loud music of every variety blaring out of open doors and windows, and even though the nightspots weren't as crowded as they would be on a weekend, they all still boasted lines of enthusiastic revelers hoping to gain admission, some stretching as long as a city block.

All of them...except for one.

Unlike the honky-tonk bar on its left, and the discotheque on its right, the front doors of _this_ club were closed, blinds drawn across the large plate-glass windows, the neon sign spelling out its name - _LAYCOOL _- in large pink cursive letters turned off. In this part of the city, most establishments stayed open until dawn, but _here_, it wasn't unusual for the bouncers to start herding club-goers out around midnight; locking the doors, closing the blinds, and then vacating the premises along with the rest of the staff.

Over the years, rumors had circulated about what _exactly_ went on within LayCool's walls once everyone had gone. The theories ranged from the mundane to the ridiculous - from drugs to satanic rites - but whatever the reason _truly_ was, it was clear that only the club's employees knew for certain...and _they_ all knew better than to talk.

Inside, the club was sleek and modern - glass-topped furniture, brightly-colored laser lights crisscrossing across the space, a wooden dance floor in front of an ultra-high tech DJ booth - but just like its exterior, was almost completely deserted. Speakers set into the walls poured out the uptempo beats of a Rihanna song - the singer's vocals nearly drowned out by the high-pitched cackling emanating from the VIP booth in the far corner of the club, followed by a sharp directive:

"Hey, bartender! Get your scrawny ass over here!"

Over behind the polished dark wood bar, the employee in question lifted his gaze at the order, but said nothing. Even though he had only been tending bar at LayCool for a few weeks, he had already figured out that his bosses generally barked worse than they bit, but at this time of night - once the club's doors had closed and everyone was gone - they were also at their most unpredictable, and that rare bite could come swiftly and without warning.

And these bitches bit _hard_.

The bartender looked back down at what he was doing, sprinkling a pinch of sugar into a pitcher of freshly made mojitos. Outwardly, he was unremarkable - average height, wiry build. His dark hair, worn a little bit long, was slicked back, and his dark beard and mustache were neatly trimmed. The only things about his appearance that hinted at a rebellious lifestyle were the few visible tattoos - _DRUG FREE _across the knuckles of both hands, the number _31_ up behind his left ear - and the ring through his lower lip.

He stirred the mixture, then laid the stirring stick aside without tasting the drink - unlike the other bartenders, he never sampled his concoctions - and set the pitcher onto a tray. Hefting it up, he balanced it expertly on one hand while lifting up the hinged section of the bar with the other, his sneaker soles squeaking softly against the wood floor as he headed back toward the VIP area.

The two young women occupying the booth could not have been more different - one was tall and blond, while the other was diminutive and brunette. Their energetic conversing did not slow one iota as the bartender approached their table; their gazes didn't so much as shift in his direction - to them, he might as well have been just another piece of furniture.

The bartender's hazel eyes slid over the details of the scene - the neat lines of pale red powder laid out on the glass tabletop, the rolled-up dollar bill clenched between the blond's thumb and index finger - his countenance unreadable. Taking the pitcher off the tray, he refilled the two glasses before setting it down and picking up its empty twin.

As he did, the blond woman's focus finally shifted his way, her azure irises registering disinterested disdain at his presence. "Took you long enough," Michelle McCool sneered. Lifting the rolled-up bill to her nose, she bent down and snorted a line of the pinkish powder off the table, then sat back, handing the makeshift straw to her companion, sniffing and rubbing her nose with the back of her hand as the mixture of cocaine and powdered blood took effect. Her lips drew back, revealing the tapered tips of her fangs. "Jesus Christ - how much time does it take to make a goddamn mojito, _Paul_?"

The bartender's mouth twitched with what could have almost been amusement, and he absently scratched his bearded chin. "Actually, it's _Phil_-"

"Whatever," Michelle cut him off, waving her hand dismissively as though the first name of her employee was a mere insignificant detail. "I _know_ that you haven't been here all that long, but it's a fairly simple concept - as you work _here_, you work for _us_, whichmeans...you do what _we _say."

The blond vampire propped her elbows on the table, linking her fingers together and resting her chin on her hands as she peered scornfully at her subordinate. "So when are you going to get it through your thick skull that when Lay and I tell you to move your ass, you better fucking _move your ass_?"

Across the table, Layla El giggled, dipping her head down to inhale a line of the chemically enhanced plasma. "You would _think_, at the rate he's moving, that he's got something more important to do than catering to our _needs_." She flicked her gaze toward the bartender, her large dark eyes briefly flashing red. "Perhaps he needs a little..._motivation_."

Michelle's focus, however, remained fixed on the bartender, her blue eyes like glittering chips of ice. "Or maybe, Lay..." she remarked, "...you and I should just consider hiring better _help_." Her voice, coated with a thick Southern drawl, was casual, almost pleasant...but there was no mistaking the implied threat hovering at the edges of her words.

If Phil was at all intimidated by her warning, he didn't show it - instead, he tucked the tray under his other arm, glancing from one vampire to the other. "Will there be anything else..._ladies_?" His tone, just like his expression, was perfectly neutral - save for the sarcastic lilt to those last two syllables; barely noticeable...but there nonetheless.

It was also not lost on either vampire, despite their narcotic intoxication; both of them stiffened, sitting up just a little bit straighter. Layla's dark eyes narrowed, boring a hole through their employee. "Yeah..." the brunette bloodsucker replied. Even though she had left London ages ago, she had never quite been able to lose the British accent that clung to her voice, making each syllable sound clipped and brusque. "There _is, _in fact..."

Her gaze swept over the bartender, lingering on his attire - zipped-up hooded sweatshirt, black cargo shorts, sneakers with no socks - before focusing once more on his face. Her full lips curved up in a haughty smirk. "This is a classy place - so _please_ try not to look like you just came from the skate park."

Michelle let out a snort of laughter, but Phil merely lifted one eyebrow, his countenance still registering nothing. "I'll keep that in mind, thanks." he replied, his tone level. Before the brunette bloodsucker could add anything further, he turned around, heading back toward the bar. "I'll be in the back washing dishes, so make sure to yell extra-loud if you need something."

He paused, then added _sotto voce_: "Not that _volume_ has ever been a problem for the two of you."

His words - obviously meant to be heard - had precisely the desired effect; both of the female vampires' smirks vanished, replaced by expressions of pure hate. Layla actually rose up out of her seat, but Michelle reached across the table, grabbing the brunette's wrist with both hands and yanking her back down. "_Sit down_." the blond bloodsucker commanded.

Layla shot her friend a furiously incredulous look. "Didn't you _hear_ what he _said_? That disrespectful _bastard_-"

"I heard it," Michelle answered, forcing an even tone through clenched teeth. "and I'm telling you - _sit...the fuck...down_."

The British vampire's lips pulled back from her teeth in a fanged snarl, but she nevertheless obeyed, settling back down into the padded booth and wrenching her hand free. Together, the two of them watched as Phil disappeared through the swinging doors into the back room, then Layla crossed both arms over her chest, pouting. "I don't trust him," she finally muttered after several long minutes had gone by. "You've seen the way he looks at us - it's not _just_ that he doesn't respect us; he's not _afraid_ of us, either. Plus...he doesn't drink - how can you trust a _bartender_ who doesn't _drink_?"

Layla shook her head, her dark eyes narrowing. "If you ask _me_, we'd be better off opening his jugular-"

"I agree with you," Michelle interrupted, her voice cold and terse. "But we can't _afford_ to have another employee go missing - the police come 'round here enough as it is-"

The brunette bloodsucker scoffed, her upper lip curling in contempt. "Who _cares_ about the cops? They know to look the other way - that's what they get _paid_ for-"

"And _who_ do you think _pays_ them?" the blood vampire shot back. She gestured between the two of them. "It's not like it's you or me, Lay. You were there during that last conference call; you _heard_ what _she_ said - _one more...incident_, like the one with Trent last month, and we're _cut_ _off_. Period."

Michelle leaned in, her voice growing softer, her demeanor sobering. "That means no more allowance, no more cushy apartment, no more _LayCool_." She cocked her head to the side. "Is that what you want, Lay? To survive on the streets? To sleep in Dumpsters and feed off of homeless like some sort of..._animal_?"

The British vampire swallowed hard. "Maryse wouldn't do that," she replied. Her voice, however, was slightly more shaky and high-pitched than it had been a moment ago, and there was a hint of fear glimmering in her dark irises. "Not to _us_."

"You _know_ that she would." Michelle's tone was flat, emotionless. Her countenance didn't outwardly change...but looking at her face, Layla could see the same instinctual terror flickering at the edges of it. "Ever since she took over, she's been _different - _that stuff's eating away at her brain-"

The blond bloodsucker stopped, drawing in a breath, the agitation in her eyes reverting back to irritation as she abruptly changed the subject. "Besides - why am _I _even getting roped into this? _I _wasn't the one who killed Trent-"

Indignation flashed across Layla's delicate features. "_Excuse me_? I _distinctly _remember you taking a couple sips once the blood started flowing! And even if I was, _I _wasn't the one who left his _body_ in the street for some _tourist_ to stumble over!"

Michelle bristled, her azure eyes narrowing to tiny slits. "Oh, so _that's _how it's going to be, huh? You're just going to _throw_ me under the bus, like you did during that conference call-"

"Throw _you_?" Layla retorted hotly. "The way _you_ were talking, you made it sound like the whole thing was _my _fault_-"_

Their voices increased in rate and volume, rising up and filling the air above them with the shrill clamor of argument...and then abruptly died away into silence as the bell above the front door tinkled softly.

The two vampires exchanged a look, their mouths dropping open almost in unison. "What did I _tell_ you?" Layla stammered when she had finally recovered her voice. "He's _arrogant_, he's _rude_ - and now he's leaving the _fucking _door unlocked-"

Without warning, she jumped up, shoving the table back, the motion rattling the melting ice in the empty glasses and disturbing the thin lines of pale red powder, her stiletto-heeled boots clacking loudly against the wooden floorboards as she stormed toward the front of the club. "_Excuse me_!" the brunette bloodsucker spat. "Can't you fucking _read_? We're _closed_!"

The only thing she could see of the new arrival above the tops of the booth was their black motorcycle helmet, laser lights gleaming dully off its polished surface. The figure reached up, taking hold of the protective gear with both hands, and tugged it off, a thick shock of disheveled golden blond hair tumbling free.

Drawing herself up to her full height - an admittedly less-than-imposing five feet two inches tall - the British vampire closed the distance between her and the newly arrived stranger in less than a second, then suddenly stopped, words momentarily deserting her as she realized with a faint flicker of surprise that their uninvited guest was _female_.

Despite the two silver rings through her lower lip and a sullen expression that seemed to be etched into her face, the unknown woman was pretty; beautiful, even, with delicately sculpted features and flawless translucent skin. Her blond hair fell to just above shoulder-length, the ends ragged and uneven, as though she'd hacked it off herself, and streaked with hand-dyed stripes of black and neon pink. With her ripped jeans and battered leather jacket, hands encased in black fingerless gloves, the heel of one of her chunky motorcycle boots tipped up against the rung of the barstool, she looked like a bit player from Sons of Anarchy.

More than that...she looked like _trouble_.

As she stood there, Layla felt a smothering sensation - like being thrown into a burlap sack and shoved underwater - tamp down over her; a total absence of _anything_ that suffocated her senses and made it difficult to string thoughts together. At first, she thought it was the coke kicking in in an unexpected way, but as the feeling persisted, she gradually registered that it wasn't coming from _her_...but from the strange woman less than a foot away from her.

Human beings weren't nearly as clever as they imagined themselves to be - unbeknownst to them, they walked through life surrounded by an aura of thoughts, feelings, and fears that even the most naive newborn could pick up on. But _this_ chick...it was as though the inner walls of her psyche were lined with lead and walled up with brick because the only thing emanating from her was _silence_; absolute, unnerving, _dead_.

The blond woman's attention was not fixed on her - in fact, she had yet to even acknowledge the brunette bloodsucker's presence - but on the bar top, and in spite of her mental disorientation, Layla realized that she had helped herself to a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels, which she was presently pouring into a shot glass.

A bolt of incredulous fury surged through the British vampire, jolting her back to the present, and her hand shot out, latching onto the strange woman's wrist, splashing the dark amber liquid onto her and the wooden surface of the bar. "You stupid _bitch_," the brunette bloodsucker snarled. "Who the hell do you think you are?"

Her full lips drew back, baring her fangs. "You picked the wrong place to come barging into-"

Her angry stream of invectives trailed off uncertainly into silence as the blond woman slowly turned her head, her gaze falling on the vampire for the first time. Layla noticed, almost as an afterthought, that her eyes were neither green nor blue, but that nebulous shade somewhere in between - and they were completely dead; no warmth, no life, just unending _emptiness._

Layla's first thought was: _Drugs, has to be - this chick's stoned out of her gourd..._ but even before the notion had finished coalescing, she knew that it was false; a lie generated by her mind to stave off the irrational but increasing feeling of unease digging its cold claws into her insides. The blue-green irises staring back at her were far too alert, far too _aware_, and with each passing second, the vacancy in their depths seemed less like the delayed reaction of a narcotic haze and more like the cold unwavering stare of a snake right before it strikes.

The woman's lips barely moved as she spoke, her voice just as flat and emotionless as her gaze: "Oh, I'm pretty sure I picked the _right_ place."

With a speed that didn't seem possible given her human limitations, she lashed out, grabbing a handful of Layla's thick dark tresses and slamming her face against the bar. There was a faint _crack _as the brunette vampire's nose broke, and the world around her suddenly became bright and hazy with pain.

Through the cloudy amalgamation of agony, dizziness, and surprise threatening to engulf her, Layla glimpsed a flash off in the peripherals of her vision - the glint of neon light off of metal - and then the pain surrounding her abruptly ratcheted up to a nearly intolerable level as the blade pierced her skin.

Layla howled, the shrill sound more animal than human, looking down in stunned disbelief at the butterfly knife sticking up out of her hand, pinning it to the bar like some fleshy fluttering insect. Dark red blood, thick and hot, streamed from the wound, along with wispy tendrils of smoke - her skin was actually searing whenever it came in contact with the blade.

In spite of the agony overwhelming her, the British bloodsucker's eyes narrowed. _Silver. _Not only had this bitch come into _her_ club, helped herself to a drink, broke her nose, _stabbed_ her - but she'd had the _audacity_, the unmitigated _gall_ to use a knife coated with _silver_.

She looked back up, garbled sounds escaping her throat, all rationality and eloquence reduced to the most rudimentary expressions of rage and hatred. The blond woman met her gaze unflinchingly with a look of detached amusement, as though the vampire was nothing more than a particularly interesting species of bug she was going to enjoy pulling the legs off of.

She cocked her head to the side, flipping back a thick lock of black- and pink-dyed hair with a single slight nod, the hint of what could almost be a smile hovering at the edges of her lips. "And it's _Ashley_...in case you were wondering."

An unearthly scream cut through the air, accompanied by a colorful blur of motion - Michelle, coming to her friend's rescue. Tearing her gaze away from Layla's, Ashley snatched her motorcycle helmet off the bar and swung it backward, catching the blond vampire right in the jaw.

The _CRACK _that accompanied it was loud and nasty, like a sledgehammer smashing into an egg. Michelle stumbled back several steps, blood already pouring from her mouth. Before she could even bring her hand up to cover her face, Ashley struck again, the curved surface of the helmet connecting with the point of the vampire's chin.

Michelle's head jerked up sharply, a strangled pain-filled grunt escaping her throat, one pointed tooth actually flying out of her mouth and sailing through the air in a lazy arc. She staggered backward drunkenly, bumping into a nearby table, collapsing onto it. The table, unable to support the sudden change in weight, upended, sending both her and it crashing to the floor.

Ashley let go of the helmet, which thudded against the floor boards, cracking her neck back and forth as she surveyed the results of her handiwork. Satisfied that she had at least temporarily decommissioned the blond bloodsucker, she turned back toward Layla - only to eat a hard kick to the face that spun her around and knocked her down to her knees.

The British vampire loomed over her, breathing hard, red eyes glaring through the curtain of dark tresses hanging in her face. Her injured hand hung at her side, blood running down her slender fingers and pooling on the floor; in the other, she gripped the butterfly knife. Letting out a feral hiss, she drove the pointed toe of her boot into Ashley's ribs, driving the blond woman all the way down to the floor.

Ashley didn't cry out; the only sound that emerged from her was a muffled _PAH_ as the air was forcibly expelled from her lungs. Her hands gripped the floor, the tips of her fingers pressing down so hard that the knuckles flushed white. "You shouldn't have done that," Her voice was thick and labored, but otherwise as flatly emotionless as before.

With effort, she looked back over her shoulder, her blue-green irises locking onto Layla's dark ones, and in spite of the hot blanket of rage enveloping her, the brunette bloodsucker felt a chill creep over her skin. Where there had been nothing in the blond woman's gaze a minute ago, there was now a murderous determination - as though the fact that she was on her stomach, clearly overpowered, was but an inconsequential detail - and Layla found herself wondering if the surly little punk rock chick at her feet was completely out of her mind.

And in that moment, the British vampire realized that she was _afraid_.

Layla quickly gave herself a mental slap, forcing her mind back to the present. Clearly this irrational foreboding was nothing more than a residual aftereffect of the coke. This bitch Ashley might _act_ all tough, might even have taken her by surprise a moment ago, but even _she_ had to know that it was over now; that there was only one possible way for this to play out.

The brunette bloodsucker pointed the tip of the knife at her assailant. "Oh, I _shouldn't_?" she echoed mockingly. Despite the unease churning her insides, she forced a sneer onto her face as she slowly shook her head. "You dumb cunt - you have _no idea_ who you're dealing with-"

The roar of the gun drowned out everything else. Layla's petite frame jerked violently, the knife slipping from her fingers. Letting out a wet gurgling sound that was somewhere between a hiccup and a cough, she looked down at the large ragged hole that had inexplicably materialized in her torso with a look of almost comical surprise.

"How about a couple of twats who've overstayed their welcome?"

With the profoundest effort, the British vampire turned toward the source of the voice, her dark irises growing wide as they met the twin black barrels of a sawed-off shotgun. Scuffed and scarred, with duct tape wrapped around the butt, the weapon had obviously seen better days, but the unblinking eyes of its muzzle never wavered, and letting out a stifled whimper, Layla forced her gaze back toward its owner.

Her mouth moved soundlessly in astonishment, opening and closing like a fish. "_Paul_?"

The newest LayCool bartender sighed, shaking his head almost pityingly. "Like I keep telling you - it's _Phil_-" He pulled the trigger a second time, and Layla's head disintegrated into a thick mist of blood, brain matter, and skull fragments; all of it reverting into a cloud of ash as it descended toward the floor. The headless body remained standing for an instant or two, then collapsed, crumbling into dust and losing its distinction.

Phil swung the shotgun back to rest against his shoulder, his mouth twisting up in a sardonic half-smile. "-but you can really just call me Punk." he finished. "Everyone does."

No response greeted his remark, and the bearded bartender shifted his gaze to the diminutive figure of Ashley, who by now had made it back to her hands and knees, seemingly unaware of the pale gray ash coating her back and clinging to her ragged golden hair. Punk shook his head, clucking his tongue in mock reprove. "What a mess - no finesse, _whatsoever_."

The blond woman rolled her eyes. "Says the man with the shotgun." she shot back. She got to her feet, kicking Layla's dusty clothes to the side, massaging her shoulder joint as she rolled her right arm around in its socket.

Punk peered at her, his expression softening a touch. "You all right?"

He got no reply; only a withering look. The tattooed man held up his palm in a relenting gesture. "_Sorry_ - forget I asked. Far be it from _me_ to actually show _concern_." He drummed his fingers against the duct-taped butt of the shotgun. "It's your own fault, anyway - I _told_ you to wait out back while I took care of them."

Ashley turned around to face him, planting her hands on her hips, her pretty face fixed in a look even more contemptuous than the first. "And let _you_ have all the fun? I don't think so-"

A low groan suddenly rose up from the upended table where Michelle had fallen. The blond vampire sat up, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead and moaning. Her mouth was a swollen bloody mess; her face and hair were streaked and smeared with red. "What...what happened?" Her voice was distorted and almost unintelligible. "Lay? Are you all-"

Her voice trailed off as she opened her eyes, her blue irises widening and filled with tears as they focused on the irregular heap of dust and clothing. "_Lay_?" A sob burst out of her, and she crawled forward awkwardly on hands and knees, sinking her hands into the silty remains of her best friend. "Oh my God, Lay! _Layla_!" The blond bloodsucker broke down crying, covering her face with her soot-covered fingers as she wept..

The barrel of the shotgun pressed against her head, and Michelle looked up, sniffing, her miserable gaze meeting Punk's neutrally distant one. "Who...who _are _you?"

Punk shrugged, a faint smirk touching his mouth. "Who, us?" He gestured between himself and Ashley. "We're just here to read the meter."

Very slowly, Michelle drew back, pushing herself backward a few inches with her hands, her focus alternating between Punk and the gun. "You're...you're making a big mistake." There was no response to her declaration, and the blond vampire's voice grew just a touch shriller with panic. "I'm _serious_! If you kill me, there'll be trouble. You have no idea. You shouldn't have touched us - those are the _rules_-"

The bartender chuckled; a hollow, empty sound. "_Rules_?" Punk took a step forward, keeping the barrel of the shotgun trained on Michelle. "Look at me." He nodded his chin in the direction of his female partner. "Look at _Ash_. Do _either_ of us look like people who give a flying _fuck_ about the rules?"

Behind the blond vampire, Ashley smirked, hooking her thumb into one of her belt loops. Punk went on. "Besides..._I'm _not the one who brought a fucking _Hunter _into my club and didn't realize it until he pulled out a shotgun and started shooting."

His voice dropped to a soft relentless murmur. "You honestly think that blond bitch is going to _protect _you - once she finds out how incompetent you are? Me blowing your brains out - it's probably a mercy compared to what _she'll_ do."

Michelle swallowed hard, perhaps finally grasping that any immunity from harm she might have possessed was rapidly slipping away. "Listen..." she began, her voice skittering upward an octave or two. "You don't have to do this. You could just...let me go - I won't tell anyone about you, I _swear_!" She pushed herself up to her knees, staring pleadingly up at Punk. "Can't we make some sort of _arrangement_-"

The bartender, however, was already shaking his head. "Believe me, bitch - there's nothing you have that I want."

"Are you _sure_?" the blond bloodsucker pressed desperately. "Money? Or information?" At this, the tattooed man rolled his eyes, and Michelle rushed on. "I'm _serious_! Maryse...she paid me and Lay to _listen_ - and that's what we did; we _listened_. We-" Her voice faltered a bit as she remembered that she was using the wrong pronoun. "-_I _heard a lot of things - some of them leading all the way back to _her_-"

Punk turned his head to the side, peering at the blond vampire out of the corner of his eye, his expression unreadable. "_Really_?" He crouched down to his haunches. resting the shotgun on his knees, its barrel still aimed in Michelle's direction. "Go on."

Michelle didn't move. "If I tell you..." she whispered hesitantly. "...will you let me live?"

The bartender shrugged. "It couldn't hurt your chances." He gestured impatiently with the gun. "_Talk_. _Now_."

The blond bloodsucker swallowed hard, her frightened blue eyes fastened on the shotgun as she spoke. "A couple years ago, something _bad _happened up north. Something important got lost or stolen - I don't know; I wasn't really paying attention. But ever since then, Maryse told us to keep an eye out for this one particular Hunter and his team - said that she wanted him captured alive; he had taken something that belonged to her."

Michelle averted her gaze for a moment, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the floor. "This guy and his crew...they're like fucking Seal Team Six. You don't see them coming, you don't even know they're there until it's too late-"

She hesitated, her gaze drifting briefly over the remains of her best friend with a sort of numb detachment. "-there's even a rumor that they have a vampire helping them; some big guy with metal fangs-"

Punk's hazel eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. "Does this mythical vampire slayer have a name?" he asked, his voice faintly sarcastic.

Michelle's azure irises flicked up, meeting his once more. Her voice was soft, almost inaudible: "_John Cena_."

A long tense minute of silence crept by. Finally, Punk let out his breath in a long slow exhale and stood, his knee joints popping faintly. "All right, then." He glanced back toward his female partner. "Ash? You wanna do the honors?"

The blond vampire looked back and forth between the two of them frantically, her blue eyes practically popping out of her skull as it gradually dawned on her that, despite all her effort, this was really and truly _the end_. "No...wait..._wait_! You _promised_! You said you'd let me _live_-"

"_No_," Punk interjected, his tone gently patronizing, as though he was correcting a very small child. "I _said_ that it couldn't hurt your chances." He swung the shotgun back, tapping the barrel lightly against the palm of his other hand. "Truth is...I was gonna kill you either way."

Michelle's jaw trembled, tears brimming in her eyes as she shook her head in disbelief. "No..._no_-" Her wailing abruptly ceased as Ashley reached into her leather jacket and pulled out a 9mm handgun, pressing it against the back of the vampire's skull and pulling the trigger.

The round tore through Michelle's head, bursting through her forehead, and obliterating what remained of her face. Ashley deftly stepped around the twitching body as it deteriorated into ash, flipping the gun up and blowing imaginary smoke from the muzzle. Her blue-green irises slid toward Punk almost perfunctorily. "You were saying something about _finesse_?" Her tone was faintly mocking.

The tattooed Hunter lifted one eyebrow, his mouth curling up into a half-smile. "Always have to have the last word, don't you?"

Ashley arched her eyebrows slightly, but didn't return the grin. "Always." She brushed past Punk, stopping briefly to retrieve her discarded butterfly knife before heading back to the bar.

The bartender followed her, resting his shotgun on the back of his neck and draping both arms over it. "So...what'd _you_ think of poor departed Michelle's little fairy tale?"

The blond woman let out a derisive snort, wiping the knife blade off on her jeans before flipping it closed and returning it to its hiding spot within an inner fold of her boot. "I think that fanged bitch would have said or done _anything_ to keep you from blowing her head off."

She pulled the half-empty Jack Daniels bottle toward her, touching its neck to the rim of the shot glass and pouring herself another drink. "John Cena's like the bloodsucker equivalent of the Boogeyman - _every_ vamp's got a story about him, and most of them are probably bullshit." Ashley shook her head. "My guess? He's dead. Dead...or he never existed to begin with."

Punk lifted up one shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. "Maybe, but..." He strolled toward the blond woman, biting his lip thoughtfully. "...what if it's the truth? What if he _did_ take something from that cock-juggling thundercunt, and now he's off the grid, hiding so far underground that he's become a myth, a bedtime story, a morality tale for bad little vampires to take heed of?"

Ashley lifted up the glass of whiskey, downing it before slamming it rim down on the bar top. Grimacing a little as the fiery alcohol burned its way down her esophagus, she rolled her eyes toward the tattooed Hunter. "What are you getting at?" she asked, her tone suspicious.

The bartender gave another slight shrug, his expression a picture of unwitting innocence. "Just that...maybe we should find out for ourselves if this guy and his crew are as good as rumor seems to think they are."

At this, Ashley froze, turning around to face her partner fully, staring at him with what could only be incredulous disdain. "You're insane." she remarked flatly. "You really are. You realize that, if we _do_ find them and we _do_ team up with them, we might as well be putting ourselves at the top of the 'Most Wanted' list - every vamp in the _world _is going to be after us-"

"-and you'd be loving every second of it," the tattooed Hunter interrupted, a note of affection creeping into his tone. "Admit it - the hunt has always been what _really_ turns you on...and I know you're tired as I am of knocking off liquor stores and tending bar in shitboxes like this." He set the shotgun down on the counter next to the whiskey bottle, leaning in and lowering his voice to a conspiratorial level, even though it was only the two of them in the club. "And if the stories _are _true - if Cena really _did_ take something from the HBIC; something she's willing to dedicate all resources to getting back-"

Punk smiled...but his hazel irises remained cold and calculating. "-then who knows - maybe we can use it to _our_ advantage..."


End file.
